HTML5 Round-up

Warning This article was written over six months ago, and may contain outdated information.

There’s been a noticeable increase in chatter about HTML5 recently, as the spec is moving towards Last Call status in October. The working group now has three co-chairs (from Apple, Microsoft, and IBM) and, despite some debate over semantics, the Working Draft of the spec was recently updated.

Earlier this month a group of high-profile developers—including Dan Cederholm and Jeffrey Zeldman—got together to discuss the spec and declare their support (albeit with some caveats) for the direction it’s moving in. Although I’m not comfortable with the self-aggrandising name they chose—the HTML5 Super Friends—their support is a positive move and their concerns have already made an impact in the September updates to the language.

It must be noted, however, that the ‘Super Friends’ concentrated on the markup language, while another aspect (the drag and drop module) has been roundly savaged in a strongly-worded attack by QuirksBlog’s Peter-Paul Koch.

Many browsers now have HTML5 implemented to varying degrees (Opera 10 is first with HTML5 Forms, for example), so if you haven’t already, it’s time to start learning. A List Apart gave a concise introduction, and the document highlighting differences from HTML4 is also a good starting point.

But if you want advice, the best thing you can do is see the Doctor.

Comments are closed.