How HTML5 Will Change the Web 208
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner looks beyond the codec and plug-in wars to examine nine areas where HTML5 will have a significant impact on Web development. From enabling more interactive graphics, to tapping local file storage, to geolocation, HTML5 is rife with rich capabilities — and may even improve our ability to secure applications delivered via the Web, Wayner writes. But the most important impact of HTML5 will be its ability to simplify Web development itself: 'HTML5 offers one language (JavaScript), one data model (XML and DOM), and one set of layout rules (CSS) to bind text, audio, video, and graphics. The challenge of making something beautiful is still immense, but it's simpler to work with a unified standard.'"
HTML5 Will Help Change The Web (Score:2, Interesting)
I love flashblock (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Offers one way of doing things" (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, I doubt that the popular browsers will even have a reliable implementation of the standard until at least 2013
I doubt IE will ever have a reliable implementation for anything. HTML5 surely aims to simplify web development, but MS aims to use their proprietary BS, tags, and implementations. Just look at their box model. Look at all the extra time we have to take to develop for IE users.
Plus, there are accessibility issues we have to overcome. We also need to develop for that small fraction of the population who use text browsers, those who are blind and have text read to them, those who don't install Flash (for good reason), those that disable JavaScript, etc.
Re:advertising (Score:2, Interesting)
I haven't actually seen the creative assets yet, so I don't know if its a campaign designed at actually selling a product (most likely is), or just keeping the brand image out there. My guess is what ever the ad is it will be interactive with the user. I've run a few small tests for amusement to see what could be done to enhance the advertising experience (sorry web users, they are going to get more integrated)- It can do some pretty neat stuff. But I digress.
In either case, I agree making a campaign that eliminates IE just to use some technology that is in its embryonic phase is stupid. Not to mention when it is probably geared to people who already have a Mac. But that could also be the point. You already have a devoted user base, might as well advertise to them to sell them the latest product... Like an iPhone 4g.
Granted I do use Firefox and Chrome via my PC... So maybe I'll buy a Mac after these ads. j/k
Re:"Offers one way of doing things" (Score:3, Interesting)
From TFA ...Flash groupies joke about HTML5 being a time machine to take you back to 2000...
Because it replaces Flash completely .... and they are worried
CHANGE IS ALREADY HERE (Score:5, Interesting)
The one real data model: XML (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are we using HTML5 and not XHTML 2?
XML abuses aside, XHTML is superior to HTML5.
HTML5 requires a more complex parser than XHTML ever will. XHTML can be validated for correctness, HTML5 is more difficult to do so.
I honestly don't understand the reason for following the HTML route. XHTML is already in an industry understood format that tools already exist for.
The market rarely reflects a superior technology. I still support XHTML. HTML5 is messy, ugly and a kludge.
All that needs to happen is to transfer some of the newer tags of HTML5 into XHTML. Perhaps we can borrow from the microformat peeps? Afterall, it's supposed to be modular.
Re:The one real data model: XML (Score:2, Interesting)
XML abuses aside, XHTML is superior to HTML5.
HTML can be loaded incrementally, XHTML can't, as you can only validate the document when you have all of it.
Re:The one real data model: XML (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are we using HTML5 and not XHTML 2?
XML abuses aside, XHTML is superior to HTML5.
Go read http://diveintohtml5.org/ [diveintohtml5.org]
Essentially, the argument is, make it easy for the users - the web programmers, not the browser programmers, and to allow the browsers to incrementally implement the standard, rather than an all or nothing that no one will do. . Telling the browser to error out when the html is not correct or supported is user UNfriendly. HTML5 provides a graceful way to handle it.
Re:The one real data model: XML (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm with you on this. It took me a while to get a good feel for valid XHTML strict. But I like the tight specification, because it makes the markup very consistent. (Ex: lowercase only, quotes for values assigned to parameters, closing slash on unclosable tags. Such as
.) I've been seeing some HTML5 examples which seem to lack that same OCD level of control and it kinda makes me twitch. More user friendly, yes, but I've come to enjoy consistency. That's my preference and it's what works for me.
Most of the new elements in HTML5 look like alternatives to div's with unique ID's ( vs
) and I can see where it would make style sheets a little cleaner, and the intended layout of a document a bit more clear. But it seems to be, as you say, messy. Advantageous, though.
The kludge comes from new capabilities that formerly required Javascript. I rather prefer the static-ness of HTML and reliance on a script for the dynamic-ness, but times are changing, and dynamic pages are where it's at. Might as well simplify their development.
Not sure what the point of this post was, but eh.
Re:"Offers one way of doing things" (Score:3, Interesting)
I would hardly call html5 an actual working implementation. Hell, html4 isn't perfectly implemented in a good chunk of browsers yet.
XHTML2 was an extensible format by definition. There was nothing there stopping you or anyone else from adding a video or canvas tag to it.
A good specification needs to be consistent, it needs to be logical and well formed, it needs to be minimal but specific, it needs to address known problems with the previous specification.
HTML5 is and does none of these.
Re:One standard does not mean one interpretation (Score:3, Interesting)
More likely from the XHTML2 workgroup. I know a guy from that workgroup, and he has nothing good to say about HTML5. He did a really nice XForms presentation on ApacheCon once, though. Apparently, with XForms you can write Google Maps in a day or so. Really cool, but not part of HTML5.
Nitpicks... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to be a minor thing simply wrong in every single point...
Point #1 is flat wrong on this count:
If drawing images is your goal, then the Canvas object may be powerful enough. But if you want to build specialized 3-D worlds like the ones found in the more sophisticated Flash and Shockwave games, you may be pining for the old days...
Erm... Maybe WebGL isn't officially part of HTML5, but it's there, and Chrome is implementing it. And personally, I'd much rather force people to download a decent open source browser than a decent proprietary plug-in -- there's alway Chrome Frame if you really need it.
Point #2:
some developers deliberately disabled the Flash plug-in to avoid the headaches and overhead of rendering heavy Flash content. That won't be an option in the future.
Bullshit. It'd take less than ten minutes to put this jQuery in a Chrome extension: $('canvas').remove();
Point #3:
Game programmers might store descriptions and artwork locally, saving the time of downloading the information again and again.
That's what HTTP caches are for, and they work for XHR, too!
Please, no one do this. Ever. HTML5 storage is for storing data. When you use it for caches, you add that much more stuff we might inadvertently back up, that much more cache we can't automatically purge (to claim disk space) or expire (from disuse), and you're doing more work to duplicate functionality HTTP already has.
Point #4:
The so-called microformats in HTML5
I'm confused... microformats don't require HTML5, do they?
Point #5 is fine, though it doesn't mention potential privacy concerns.
Point #6:
Google's new format will see some usage, for example in YouTube, but will never reach anywhere close to the ubiquity of H.264.
Erm, do you know something we don't? Last I checked, YouTube is still H.264 -- in a Flash container, no less.
Point #7, I don't care about.
Point #8:
This claim of better security, though, is a bit of a wild guess. The devious minds may use their malice aforethought to take advantage of the nice integration, perhaps drawing PayPal logos with the Canvas object...
So phishing will be easier? Big deal. Hasn't Flash been the biggest vector for actual client-side pwnage for awhile?
Point #9:
Now, if only HTML5 came with the nice collection of tools that Adobe makes for Flash.
Adobe has said they plan to target HTML5.