Lesson 1: What is HTML5?
HTML5 is the next version of HTML.
As you already know, you use HTML to write web pages. But we didn't have an HTML make-over for a decade or so. It is a geological era in internet time: things were moving on, and HTML was lagging behind.
Plugins like Adobe Flash and Apple Quick Time opened up the amazing world of multimedia web experiences: we all expect to watch movies, listen to our favorite band's performance, and get a university degree on the web.
But plugins can be a nuisance, especially to non-Geeks: all that downloading and updating, not to mention the risk of nasty computer viruses lurking behind people's worst nightmares.
How cool would it be to have all this multimedia, interactive stuff where it really belongs, that is right in your HTML code? Here's HTML5 to the rescue!
Okay, but why HTML5?
You already know more than you need to at this stage. However, for the sake of good order, let us explain the background in greater detail.
Following a number of previous release versions, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the working group behind web standards, released HTML4.01 in 1999. After this date, work on HTML has stagnated for a long while.
The W3C focused their efforts on the creation of XHTML which encouraged sloppy coders to clean up their act quite a bit: they had to make sure to close all tags, use strictly lower-case letters, forget about frowned upon elements, etc. All good things. But some felt that the W3C's with the focus on XHTML where not responding to the real needs of browser makers and users.
And as the story goes, after a W3C meeting back in 2004, a few dissatisfied rebels from Apple, Mozilla, and Opera, formed a working group known as WHATWG (aka the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group). They decided to go back to HTML4 with the intention of evolving the language while keeping it compatible with all previous versions, including XHTML versions.
The WHATWG's work was gaining more and more hype, while the W3C's work on XHTML2 was dragging on and on at a painfully slow pace. Finally, the W3C dumped XHTML2 and joined in the HTML5 game by producing their own HTML5 spec in 2008.
Some time around 2012, HTML5 is to reach Candidate Recommendation status. In non technical language, this means that no significant changes will be made to HTML5. Later the standard is expected to reach Proposed Recommendation status. Said in jargon-free language, this means: that's it! Get the document and slam a W3C seal of approval on it.
So, what's the hype all about?
HTML5 is packed with a bunch of super powers to turbo charge your web pages like native apps:
- New tags like <video> and <audio> to play video and sound without any plugins;
- Cool form controls that make coding usable and interactive forms a breeze;
- And an arsenal of app-like capabilities to draw and paint on the web page, store data locally in the browser, drag and drop items around the screen, and much more, just with HTML and JavaScript alone.
The ultimate goal is that of a plugin-free, consistent web experience across zillions of different web devices and browsers.
OK, HTML5 is cool, but is it ready for use now?
HTML5 is still being developed, and it won't be finished for quite some time.
But this is no problem for us. Not all HTML5 features are being developed at the same pace: some are more mature than others, browsers are being quick to implement them in their upgrades, and brilliant developers have been hard at work with polyfills and workarounds for older browsers.
And finally ...
Enough talking, it's now time to fire off the code editor. Let's get started!
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