W3C Finalizes the Definition of HTML5

hypnosec writes "The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced that it has finalized the definition of HTML5 and that it is ready for interoperability testing. HTML5 hasn't been given the status of standard yet but it is feature complete now, giving developers a stable target to develop their web applications. The W3C said in the announcement 'HTML5 is the cornerstone of the Open Web Platform" and that it provides an environment which can utilize all of a device's capabilities like videos, animations, graphics and typography. The HTML5 specifications still have a long way to go before they hit the Recommendation status. HTML5 will have to go through a round of testing that looks specifically into interoperability and performance after which time it will be given a Candidate Recommendation title."

Comments

Mayan Calendar was right

[Shikaku]

Mayan Calendar was right, it is the end of the world..

Re:Mayan Calendar was right

[Smallpond]

At least for Adobe.

Re:Mayan Calendar was right

[Xest]

Your last paragraph sounds great, I agree it's a nice thing to aim for in theory, but have you actually worked on any serious cross-platform HTML5 projects in practice? It's a fucking nightmare.

I actually really, really hate Flash such that I've always refused to learn it and still refuse to, but we've actually had to resort to Flash on some projects because it's still the easiest way to implement cross-browser unified web experiences. HTML5 projects work poorly across different browsers and platforms.

HTML5s only real strength seems to be for building mobile web pages, on the desktop HTML5 still works and looks completely different between Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, but even on mobile it's hardly the unified development dream we were sold it to be by WHATWG - far from it. Web development now, with HTML5 is more awkward than I remember it being for many many years because of the countless inconsistencies.

The fundamental issue is that like you say, "they might be wonky sometimes" but how is that different to older versions of (X)HTML? HTML5 is just more of the same - more features that don't work right/consistently between platforms, but because there's so much of it, if you try to use any sizeable number of new HTML5 features then you'll end up with more of an inconsistent clusterfuck than ever before. Or in other words, nothings changed, you could always use a minimal set of HTML/CSS features and get a page to work on all devices, and as you added more the inconsistencies grew, that's still the case, HTML5 doesn't change that, it just adds more inconsistencies to fuck things up with.

Honestly, your last paragraph is noble sounding but you're ultimately just parroting WHATWG's marketing blurb, and they simply didn't manage to live up to the hype they sold in practice with the production of HTML5. The end product is really quite a train wreck, partly because the spec was badly produced, partly because no matter how good the spec, browser vendors are still utterly shit at their job, and shit at achieving a decent degree of interop between each other's offerings.

I do agree with the GP, between current browsers being such a quagmire of shite as the codebases have become ever more screwed up with the addition of new features over the years, and the fact that HTML and related technologies were never really designed with the complexity of webapps people ask for in mind today, we'd be far better off if we just kept HTML as a web document format, and created a new set of technologies for web applications. I've mentioned it before, it could still interop with HTML, using say, app:// as a new protocol running alongside HTTP allowing linking and so forth between HTML pages and apps to work seamlessly, but ultimately the web isn't going to move in the direction people want it to move in unless some ground up technology like this is built.

Re:Incorrect

[Synerg1y]

How is this different from past revisions? That's just how it is, if you don't read the spec, and go to use a datetime input and wonder why it doesn't work in ie7, well... hopefully you can google the answer. I remember when css3 first rolled around, it featured tons of almost mission critical enhancements, and about 10% of browsers actually took advantage of it, so you had a bit of double coding going on: css3 code for newer browsers, same / similar / lack of design feature in older browsers. Since then, support has gone to more like 95% or so with new versions of firefox, chrome, safari, IE that are all css3 compliant.