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In-Depth Look At HTML5
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers a four-part series devoted to the new features of HTML5. Each article examines the evolving spec in-depth, focusing on canvas, video, audio, and graphics for display options, including the <canvas> and <video> tags, Scalable Vector Graphics, and WebGL; local data storage, including Web Storage, Web Database, and other APIs designed to transform Web pages into local applications; data communications, for cross-document messaging, WebSockets, and other HTML5 APIs that improve website and browser interactivity; and forms, for increasing control over data input and validation."
Well, despite the fact that XML and HTML are abysmal markup languages, they are a heck of a lot better and more consistent than the off-the-cuff designed-by-horses carnivals you find in PDF and other markup languages that started as internal document formats for proprietary word processors. Consistent design leads to more well organized, less complex code.
In addition, since HTML5 is coming with declarative animation features embedded, and on the heels of active use of the DOM, it has to be designed with performance in mind -- so there's a counterweight for the tendency for bloat to accrue.
That said, with HTML looking to become a "living standard" after HTML5 or in other words, complete anarchy, there will be space for a streamlined markup language to make gains again in another half decade or so -- if someone can finally produce something that doesn't suck for human readability and for complex relationships that transcend tree structures. Perhaps we will have the first popular non-textual markup language by decades end.
Someone had to do it.