[HTML5] Badge of shame | Hacker News Reader

[HTML5] Badge of shame

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44 pointskmfrk22 comments

> We never needed a term to refer to “XHTML 1.0 plus CSS2.1” or “HTML4.01 plus JavaScript”

Various combinations of these were labeled with terms like “Web Standards”, “Semantic HTML”, “DHTML”, “Ajax”, “Web 2.0”, etc.

If people want a term that denotes “website which takes advantage of modern standards-based browser features”, how is that a bad thing?

Clearly the solution is to eschew the irony and just call the core technologies Web 3.0.

But that’s not how terms are coined. “HTML5” (the term) has too much history that the W3C can’t ignore. They can’t realistically change definitions by fiat, not at this point in time.

Sigh. I find that so frustrating.

Having one unified term makes popularizing the technology so much easier. How to label books (etc.) which deal with HTML5 and HTML5 only is honestly an edge case and the editors of those books can certainly come up with creative solutions. That’s a compromise (not a very bad one, either) you will have to live with.

Umbrella terms have existed in the past (like “Web 2.0”, …) and they were usually distinct from the actual names of the standards (I think because the standards had names that sounded very technical) but that is just not the case with HTML5. That’s the status quo. Thinking up a different umbrella term now, in isolation from actual usage, seems counterproductive.

It may not be the most elegant solution but that’s where we are. It’s not as though the W3C can decide how people will use the term. W3C picked the realistic common sense solution.

>What we have here is a deliberate attempt to further blur the lines between separate technologies that have already become intertwingled in media reports.

Are they really separate technologies? Is anyone actually planning on using standards compliant HTML5 in isolation, apart from corresponding advanced Javascript and CSS3 features?

> Is anyone actually planning on using standards compliant HTML5 in isolation, apart from corresponding advanced Javascript and CSS3 features?

Probably not, but I'm sure there's people planning to use advanced Javascript and CSS3 in HTML4 pages.

I'm using CSS3 (as a progressive enhancement) in XHTML1.1 ... am I doing it wrong?

IMO you're "doing it right", but I've never worried much about buzzword compliance.

It does make sense to use it in isolation, because the HTML5 parsing rules are much more robust against errors, without suffering from the catastrophic failure mode of XHTML. You can use the HTML5 doctype today, and you can validate your code as HTML5 today, and it will work across all common browsers.

to be honest I am fairly happy about the complete abuse of the html5 term, its a marketing term and people are beginning to get that.

html isnt developed like software and it doesnt have point releases, html4 / xhtml mean absolutely nothing more than a specification that browser developers are suggested to be compatible against. pretending that they are set in stone rules about how to code was just dumb. which is why html is now versionless.

hopefully this will also lead to the end of the "html5 wont be ready until 2022" meme.

If you want to stop the abuse of HTML5 you better suggest a good alternative. There's a real need for a term to describe this new wave of web standards and capabilities, HTML5 is as of yet the best we have.

A Modest Proposal: HTML5000. Now with more future!

You have a very narrow view of the world.

In reality, most developers will stick with HTML4+JS+CSS and use Flash if they want a canvas and timelines.

Most developers will wait for HTML6. No one needs an HTML5 'Movement'. That is ridiculous and shows ignorance in the work professionals do everyday in developing online apps and websites.

> "Most developers will wait for HTML6. No one needs an HTML5 'Movement'."

That doesn't make any sense. When IE6/7 and partially 8 become small enough, most competent developers will use HTML5 technologies in part of their work. Flash will always have its uses, and there will always be developers unwilling to migrate, but that faction is certainly not "most" in the long term.

Also, HTML6 isn't coming. The WHATWG has said as much.

Even if everyone is using new browsers, HTML5 is still not required to do anything that can't already be done using some other method.

They are promoting HTML5 over current industry standards, and so far it's been rocky. Example: Google actively promoting Flash support, but dropping video codecs. It's all promoting what is good for their business. Apple and Microsoft do the same.

I'm already using localstorage (with userdata fallback on IE7) to avoid server roundtrips for data that's only relevant to the client. It's the best technology choice for local state, and it falls under the HTML5 umbrella. Marketing technologies to developers that may be better suited than their current technologies (die, cookies, die) isn't a bad idea.

The burden is really the complete opposite here. Certainly someone shouldn't have to defend a definition? That said, I've always considered "client side" a sufficient encompassing terminology.

If we repurpose the term HTML5... what precisely, then, do you propose we call HTML5?

The logo needs more ponies and rainbows.

http://www.w3.org/html/logo/

If you scroll down a bit on the logo page, http://www.w3.org/html/logo/ you can see that there are other logos for CSS3, canvas, et al.

I like HTML5 as an umbrella term. HTML5 has always been all about being pragmatic instead of excruciatingly accurate.

I think this is nitpicking, developers generally use all those technologies, so it's kind of logical to merge them under one umbrella.

HTML5 as a buzzword means "not Flash".

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