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Tim BurdenTim Burden
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The other day I tweeted out 11 reasons to like HTML5, the next step in the evolution of the language that powers the web. But that was a little off the cuff, and though it wasn’t bad, here’s a revised and expanded version.

  1. A cleaner, simplified, and more meaningful syntax: As an example, here’s the way the doctype declaration looks for XHTML, which is what this site is coded in:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>

    Here’s the new doctype declaration:

    <!DOCTYPE html>

    Now isn’t that a lot simpler? The doctype declaration tells a browser how to interpret the code it is rendering. It’s important. And now I might actually remember how to type it. Other tags that used to be more complicated have also been cleaned up.

  2. Native support for video: Using the <video> tag, designers can embed video directly into webpages without the use of Flash or other proprietary browser plugins.There are issues, of course. Flash and YouTube have made it simple to embed video, because with YouTube’s help Flash is in nearly every browser (there are very notable exceptions) and so every browser could interpret its video format, and Flash video is a de facto standard. Browsers now must standardize (again) on a video format.In the meantime, here’s a method to reach all browsers right now, using the HTML5 <video> support and Flash as a fallback only.
  3. The <canvas> tag: Instead of proprietary plugins like Flash and Silverlight, now you can draw rich media right in HTML, and interact with it with JavaScript directly through the DOM.
  4. Offline web applications: Our devices aren’t always connected to the Internet (subways, planes, ISP FAIL, etc.) But now your web applications can still work. Google’s GMail works offline only if you install Gears, which Apple doesn’t like. With HTML5, any browser can run your web app even when the Internet is broken.
  5. Geolocation: your browser can know where you are and your web app can use that information to do cool things, such as show you where the nearest restaurants are, or help you navigate traffic, or show you where your friends are.
  6. Web Workers: JavaScripts can now execute in parallel, so your browser doesn’t have to hang while some computationally-heavy process finishes, or some AJAX call completes. Think of it as multi-threading for browsers.
  7. It’s ready to use right now: Drop the new doctype at the top of a valid webpage done in XHTML or HTML4 and it will likely validate as HTML5. Use one of the new canvas or video tags, and browsers that don’t yet do HTML5 will simply ignore them. And there are browsers available right now that will understand the new tags and do the right thing with them.Mind you, for some time to come I expect we will have to support browsers that do not grok HTML5. But with Google and Apple pushing hard for HTML5, that transition might be shorter than I think. In the meantime, there is a JavaScript library to easily detect whether a browser has certain HTML5 features and fall back if necessary.
  8. Google and Apple say so: Google and Apple are big enough that when they start pushing for something, they usually get their way. Blackberry maker RIM and smartphone manufacturer Nokia are also involved in developing WebKit, the HTML5-compliant web browser engine that powers Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. Here’s an interesting chart showing these companies at work on WebKit.
  9. It has a bible: Mark Pilgrim is doing for HTML5 what he did for Python: writing an informative book and making it available for free on the web. Along with learning how to use HTML5’s awesome new features, you’ll get an overview of the history of HTML and a rundown of the video format war.
  10. It tweets as it evolves: The WHAT Working Group, which oversees the development of HTML5, posts changes to the specification on Twitter.
  11. It has its own movie:

Do I expect the developer world to suddenly flock to HTML5, abandon Flash, and start using the <video> tag everywhere? No. There’s huge infrastructure built on Flash, and Internet Explorer is not ready for HTML5.

But I do expect we should all be taking a hard look at this technology and start implementing it where we can. And I also expect that newspaper companies (and other web publishers) would be well advised not to make major investments in Flash development at this time. “Wait and see” would be the right approach over the next year, rather than shelling out sizeable cash.