W3C Announces Plan to Make HTML5 Standard By 2014

[Albert Wiersch]

Here's some interesting news about HTML5.

W3C Announces Plan to Make HTML5 Standard By 2014

I'm glad to see they're trying to speed things up a bit, but the plan has not yet been approved.

[MikeGale]

I kept a close eye on this at one time, but grew weary of the weirdness in how it's being done. So I'm out of touch.

A couple of points that come to mind.

• Who controls what HTML5 is, W3C, WHATWG, browser makers, Hixie, Developers or Users. In a world full of political people, scrapping and vindictiveness it's complex, but I don't think W3C rates all that highly.
• Some adopters seem to be shying away. Facebook, maybe because their developers weren't productive using it and others. Adoption is unclear to me and this http://www.tomsguide.com/us/HTML5-Fragmentation-Chrome-iOS-Android,news-15416.html looks at it.
• I've recently tested the new University online systems. Specifically Coursera. They have a great little video-lectures system, on their HTML 5 site. It can be played at several speeds, which is great (normal video speed is way too slow, the brain goes to sleep!). Trouble is the multiple speed is a work in progress. I started testing several browsers, a couple of OS's (before I decided that it was nuts to be doing this). The Safari Win failed, FF didn't work, Chrome worked... I think that's emblematic of HTML5. Fragmentation of the web, a horror for testing if you seek the bleeding edge!
• Some major browser makers have an interest in slowing HTML 5 and might even secretly wonder if they can kill further progress. They have their apps. they make extravagant margins each time they sell them. They make nothing on web properties. They are involved in making the specs. I'm unconvinced they have my interests at heart.

[Lou]

"Fragmentation of the web, a horror for testing if you seek the bleeding edge!"

You don't even need to go to the bleeding edge for the current fragmentation to be mind numbing. Although trying to get websites to look close to the same on the current 5 browser has improved my coding, I find nothing exciting about the process.

I am trying to dip my toe into the mobile web and if that is any indication of where HTML5 is taking us ... Every manufacture seems to have/need their own emulator/simulator, although my current set of references are 2 yr old so out of date I am sure. But moving the "large screen" into the same mess seems like a step back in time to IE vs Netscape only more so.

[MikeGale]

You don't even need to go to the bleeding edge for the current fragmentation to be mind numbing.

I think it's quite reasonable not to attempt pixel perfect matching between browsers.

A focus on that led many developers down some unproductive dead ends. As an example using images to get rounded corners. A true horror. Now it's time to use the rounded corners that're built into html. One way of doing that is to test on the "non rounded corners" browsers to make sure that it works for you (with the square corners). It's also worth check what proportion of your visitors will see the square corners (I recall 15% or less last time I checked the audience of a fairly conservative site).

It's also worth thinking about all those mobile devices. When you think about web pages it's easy to mistake them for fully powered computers. When you consider more serious applications, where the user is doing something more substantial, it's obvious that many of them are not full computers. They don't intend to be and they aren't. It's a good idea to think of them as several separate platforms. That makes it easier to face the fact that you may have to develop the same thing with say four front ends.

[Lou]

I think it's quite reasonable not to attempt pixel perfect matching between browsers.

God forbid! I'm frustrated enough just adjusting font size, margins and padding so that form labels and input areas retain a reasonable physical relationship on the screen. A page does not present a vary professional look when an h1 or h2 header rolls into 2 lines because of the difference in presenting a font size, or how EI implemented the "box".

I just don't fine it vary stimulating fiddling with 5 CSS files so that a simple page looks "OK" in the browsers you mentioned. The process seems to me much like the virtual reality games, which boil down to 'given some clues what would the designer do? what were they thinking?' That is much different that reading the standard and understanding how to reach a given objective.

The mobile effort is to be able to present something to the tourist walking down the street next summer. If nothing more than being able to reserve tickets for the play advertised on the playbill. That is of course the most involved thing on the site. Everything else is basically info screens. I don't expect anyone to use their smart phone to make donations, but to reserve tickets that would be nice.