HTML5: Up and Running 31
| HTML5: Up and Running | |
| author | Mark Pilgrim |
| pages | 224 |
| publisher | O'Reilly Media |
| rating | 8/10 |
| reviewer | eldavojohn |
| ISBN | 978-0596806026 |
| summary | A brief initial look at the cemented changes and features in HTML5 as well as those to come. |
Chapter two is entirely focused on checking whether or not the user's browser supports any of the many features HTML5 is bringing to web developers' fingertips. An important thing to note throughout the book is that Pilgrim makes sure to keep mobile browsers in mind and a part of the discussion. While useful, this occupies fifteen verbose pages of the already short book.
Chapter three has really good material in it if you're looking to evolve from HTML4 to HTML5 without any of the added functionality (just markup). It makes for cleaner code and introduces all the new tags and their functionality. Here you'll see how navigation has been generalized (much to the joy of disabled/impaired users who rely on screen readers) and how to properly transform and maintain HTML towards to HTML5.
Chapter four does a good job of beginning to cover the canvas element and drawings in HTML5. Drawing shapes, lines, setting text and rendering images multiple times on the canvas are all covered. The chapter presents many examples and ends with a simple implementation of a game of halma. It's inefficient, and he alludes to better ways of rendering game graphics (like redrawing only 'dirty' parts of the screen). But I hope he takes the time to flesh out this chapter, as I've seen impressive things done with canvas already. I really hoped for more out of this chapter, but must concede that it might be better off in a book devoted to game design.
The next chapter exhaustively covers video and audio codecs. From there the book steps the user through how to make their page foolproof so that the video tag gracefully resorts back to Flash (or whatever you want), should it be unable to find a supported video codec. From batch encoding with ffmpeg to Firefogg to using handbrake, the author holds the user's hand and more (even explains MIME types). This chapter is very valuable to anyone who is sitting on some video data that wants anyone to be able to access it and isn't opposed to multiple encodings.
I'd like to mention also that Pilgrim is an entertaining author. As he covers the available codecs, he pokes fun at a few corporations:
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 is colloquially known as "MP3." If you haven't heard of MP3s, I don't know what to do with you. Walmart sells portable music players and calls them "MP3 players."Walmart. Anyway ...
And in regards to DRM:
Originally, all AAC files "bought" from the iTunes Store were encrypted with Apple's proprietary DRM scheme, called FairPlay. Selected songs in the iTunes Store are now available as unprotected AAC files, which Apple calls "iTunes Plus" because it sounds so much better than calling everything else "iTunes Minus."
It should be noted that Pilgrim can at times seem a little pro-Google. They are his employer, but I would appreciate it if he was an equal opportunity humorist and didn't pick on just the others.
Chapter six gives a short introduction to the geo-location features and the API provided by HTML5. It explains how to use gears or geo.js to work around IE's lack of support and also explains how to opt out of this sort of service — as it might seem a little too much for some people. I guess this is a feature for advertisers (not like they aren't doing it already, anyway).
Chapter seven briefly covers local storage in HTML5 and the precursors to it (cookies). It's got a few code snippets you can tinker with. There's a great meme embedded in this chapter: 'userData allows web pages to store up to 64 KB of data per domain, in a hierarchical XML-based structure. (Trusted domains, such as intranet sites, can store 10 times that amount. And hey, 640 KB ought to be enough for anybody.)' The chapter covers competing visions and notes that this is a separate effort from the core elements of HTML5. At the end, Pilgrim adds persistence to the halma game from earlier. This is already being abused, by the way.
Chapter eight shows how to markup your pages so that they operate offline. You include resources in the cache manifest file to let the browser know what to cache for offline usage (and more importantly, what not to cache). Again, at the end of this chapter, we take the halma game offline.
Chapter nine is one of the better chapters, as it extensively covers the various new types of form inputs we have in HTML5. Gone are the days of importing calendar scripts to create a date popup widget (although we already know how to check whether that's required). Search inputs, different kinds of integer selectors and color pickers are all covered in this chapter. While you might have experienced this in many other UI technologies, we're finally receiving native support in the browser!
The final chapter is relatively lengthy and very informative. It explains microdata and how to make HTML5 extensible so you can define your own markup (while keeping it normal so that older browsers don't plotz). It's like advanced metadata. You might wonder: Why would you do this? Well, the chapter continually shows how Google search results interpret this data ... but we aren't informed of any competitors using it or any plans of them using it. Pilgrim informs us that we should put this around our data and let others decide what to do with it (they might surprise you). So while the work is pretty extensive, you won't immediately see the fruits of your labors (unless everyone else is already doing it).
HTML5 has a long way to go. I hope this book is a living document, and I imagine the final O'Reilly book on HTML5 will be several times the length of Up and Running, but until those who ship their code cement it (after reading this book, my money's on Google), we'll have to wait. In the meantime, Pilgrim has some great resources on his site and done a decent job with this book.
You can purchase HTML5: Up and Running from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>They won't send you more free copies now.
Unless maybe if they think they have a genuinely good book and believe that this reviewer has a reputation of having integrity.
Re: (Score:2)
Or if you work as an instructor (even an adjunct) :)
Of course, my local library system (aclib.us) just got a "site wide" Safari subscription, so I can get it online free.
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How many copies of the same book do you need to read?
Reminds me of the scene in "My Blue Heaven". "(The other copies) are just in case I want to read the book multiple times!"
Graceful fall backs (Score:5, Funny)
You mean something like this [yayeveryday.com]?
Real mature (Score:3, Informative)
I'd like to mention also that Pilgrim is an entertaining author. As he covers the available codecs, he pokes fun at a few corporations:
MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 is colloquially known as "MP3." If you haven't heard of MP3s, I don't know what to do with you. Walmart sells portable music players and calls them "MP3 players."Walmart. Anyway ...
Yay, this helps me to feel so superior to the stupid slobs who shop at Walmart.
Originally, all AAC files "bought" from the iTunes Store were encrypted with Apple's proprietary DRM scheme, called FairPlay. Selected songs in the iTunes Store are now available as unprotected AAC files, which Apple calls "iTunes Plus" because it sounds so much better than calling everything else "iTunes Minus."
It's "plus" because they doubled the bitrate at the same time. Oh, and it's not "selected songs," it's the entire catalog.
But if we trolled the poor ignorant rednecks that shop at Walmart, we've gotta troll the Apple elitists, too, right?
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
"iTunes Plus" started on "selected songs" before it rolled out to all songs. Given how long books can take to write, sometimes, it's possible he wrote it during that period and never updated it.
HTML3 (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, I thought we were still in the HTML4/Transitional phase from HTML3 ... yes, I know thats not the case, but it seems to me that the sites I prefer as far as their usability and aesthetics aren't really using anything new.
Confusing in spots (Score:3, Interesting)
I appreciate the review, but I could not figure out the intended meaning of several of your sentences.
Who is opting out? The user? Out of what, providing geolocation information?
What feature? Geolocation? What are they doing already, anyway? Why is geolocation for advertisers? It seems pretty useful on my iPhone with no advertising involved.
What code? Are you talking about new versions of browsers? What does "cement it" mean here? Most of HTML5 is already supported in any decent browser. Your money's on Google to do what?
Adobe and HTML5 (Score:4, Interesting)
What is adobe's plan to live in a world after HTML5 takes over? What will happen to Flash?
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Re: (Score:2)
What is adobe's plan to live in a world after HTML5 takes over?
Adobe doesn't make money from people running Flash applets. They make money from selling content-creation software. They'll adapt just fine.
What will happen to Flash?
Good question. My guess is that it'll lose market share, but won't disappear completely. There's a lot of inertia behind it, and it can do things that can't be done with HTML/JS (yet).
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Well if you think that you can dictate to people that they should go back to the days of "this website is best viewed with [xxxxx] browser" then you will find that most people, businesses and organizations aren't up for it. Especially since you can't come up with anything apart from some ideological objections. Talk about lost cause dude.
Truth is that Flash is very open in a number of respects and cross platform implementations are great - Flash on Android is superb, and as you probably know, is faster on m
You can also... (Score:3, Interesting)
... read a similar book he's working on here. [diveintohtml5.org]
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Mark Pilgrim speaks from programming knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
While everybody else is regaling us with how to use article, hgroup and section, gee thanks, don't strain yourself, Mark's telling us how to use excanvas.js and conditional comments to get MSIE to use VML to simulate canvas. HTML5: Up and Running isn't for blog writers, it's for developers.
There's so much to cover, you need multiple books. Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp's book Introducing HTML5 tells us how to do drag-and-drop and WAI-ARIA landmark roles, which Mark doesn't do, even though he also wrote Dive Into Accessibility. And the Peter Lubbers, et al., book Pro HTML5 Programming give us 31 pages about how to do WebSockets and 48 pages about how to do Web Workers. It's the parable of the blind men feeling up the elephant and giving different descriptions. And yet not one of them shows even a single line of Inline SVG code or a practical use for custom data-* attributes, which can be really, really useful. So there's room for even more HTML5 books!!
I guess what I'm saying is, please don't knock this book just because it's not everything you ever wanted to know about HTML5. None of them are. Just buy the books by those who specialize in what you want to know. I admire how Mark lays out really practical knowledge, even if you don't.