Zikula Blog

Yesterday Google announced to completely drop support for IE6 and although we know what hideous beast the IE6 was and that it deserves to die, there is a lot more behind that: Google really pushed forward towards HTML5 - google.com already is HTML5 and you can test Youtube in HTML5. Why are they so keen on it?

We've come a long way ever since the first Postnuke site - Sites today are much more graphical. And while the old pages were made abusing HTML-tables, today CSS enables us to place mostly anything anywhere. We have gotten to know HTML not as means to format pages but to structure it. This idea has become mainstream over the last couple of years. "Webstandards" was THE topic 2008.

But then nothing happened for a long time. W3C had decided to reimplement SGML based HTML4 in XML and called it xHTML1.0. It was updated in xHTML1.1 which well required delivery with an XML-mime-type. That never took of, because the slightest error made browsers only display an error, while normally browser always tried to display at least something. Even though xHTML1.1 has only rarely been used properly (Andreas Krapohl implemented a XML/xHTML page in Postnuke for pn-cms.de as proof-of-concept) W3C started working on xHTML2 - and they worked and worked and worked and never came to an end.

That is when HTM5 popped up: A gang of industry mavericks began working on an alternative and rethought HTML. HTML5 is not a mere collection of new tags - although there are some. HTML5 includes some technologies that will change the face of the web radically:

1. HTML5 includes a client side database: Applications can store values and keep on running while the user loses connection to the net. Moreover this will increase performance, when important user-related data can be stored locally. 2. HTML5 supports vector graphics. Finally after some earlier attempts with VRML and the likes browser will support Vector graphics using SVG - and it's scriptable via normal JavaScript. 3. HTML5 natively supports Video. No stupid flash-workarounds: You can directly include the video into HTML and enable and disable controls. 4. HTML5 is location aware. Every application can ask the browser of the location of the user - who in turn has to allow this access. 5. HTML5 included so called "web workers". JavaScript will become more and more important as "web worker" allow faster execution times.

HTML won't be about tinkering webpages anymore: It will become top-notch programming and the web will become more and more mobile.

There's a great introduction to HTML5 by Brad Neuberg on Vimeo.