Even many non-developers have heard the term “HTML5”. Is the hype around this emerging web design technology all it's promoted to be? Short answer: YES!
Like any emerging term growing in popularity, they sometimes get attached to anything wanting to bask under the fashionable umbrella du jour. As wannabe types try to ride the trend, eventually words start to lose meaning. Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO Famously griped about the ambiguous term cloud computing a few years ago: “The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about”. I won't even start ranting on ways “web 2.0” was abused, and is now oh-so passé.
But what about HTML5? I generally avoid jargon and try to use plain language and specific terminology (and get really by people who don't). Why is this ill-defined standard so exiting to me as a web developer and many others? Because HTML5 is literally the future of web design at our doorsteps! It is opening up many new possibilities, and parts of it are already available today. This yet to be finalized set of new features will be standard in all browsers very soon. In fact, most browsers support these features today. The glaring exception of industry laggard Microsoft, who hopes to have many of them by 2011 in Internet Explorer version 9.
Here is my list of the top 5 features I find most interesting
| # | Feature | Why it's so awesome |
1 | Canvas | Dubbed the “flash killer” by many, feature allows for drawing lines and shapes within a block of the web page. It is high performance enough to draw all the pixels needed to play a video or create games. |
2 | SMIL | Another feature that used to require the flash plug-in: embedding certain audio and multimedia files. |
3 | Web SQL Database | Browsers will have the SQLlite database embedded within for use by a web page. |
4 | Off-line Application Cache | You can mark files of your website for “caching” (saving locally) so that they are available even after you disconnect from the Internet. Therefore, the site keeps working. |
5 | Web sockets | This technology will flip the client server paradigm. |
HTML5 is being co-developed by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group and the W3C so be sure to visit those sites for more information.
