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Comment by rimantas | Hacker News Reader

I am afraid these boilerplates will be an excuse for many not to learn a thing about what they are doing, like we had XHTML doctypes slapped onto the pages (or place there by IDEs).

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Which is sad, considering that HTML5 makes is so very easy to write (valid) HTML off the top of your head:

  <!doctype html>
  <title>Hello World!</title>
  <p>insert important message to world here.

I agree that blind use without understanding is not the best case, but I still believe these boilerplates are helpful. Especially if the choice is between someone copy-pasting an HTML5 boilerplate or sticking with their IDE's HTML4/XHTML1 boilerplate because they don't have the time or inclination to fully grok the quirks of using HTML5 on a production site.

I finished the first iteration of a project recently, using HTML5Boilerplate merged with HTML/CSS purchased from ThemeForest. Even though I'm pretty well familiar with HTML5 and ended up pruning a bit of the boilerplate that wasn't necessary for my project, it was still a very welcome jumpstart.

I agree with that, and I think these things really started to pop up because it is generally thought that front-end folks are scared-of or don't-know-anything-about HTML5. It's the developers' response to help push HTML5.

It seems odd that anyone is capable of using HTML5 Boilerplate "without learning". It is almost impossible to use something without knowing what it is useful for.

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