HTML5 Got Pushed to 2014 and I Don't Care

Recently the W3C stated that after several more years of rigorous testing the final HTML5 spec will be ratified in 2014. This sounds nice but truthfully you need to be building and deploying your web apps in HTML5 now, because it is already here. The last major browser to gain HTML5 support(Internet Explorer 9) is in release-candidate and will be released to the public this sprint(likely at the MIX conference). With big players like Google, Apple and Microsoft behind HTML5 today you can bet the world will adopt HTML5 as the standard long before the W3C finalizes it. Even Microsoft has taken its foot off the gas pedal with their cross-platform runtime Silverlight in favor of HTML5 as the de facto standard for web app development going forward.

Think it can’t happen? 802.11 N Wi-Fi was supported in thousands of devices in 2007 a full two years before the spec was finalized(October 2009). The truth is technology is moving faster than these consortiums can handle. Non-profit approval groups meant to standardize technologies are often the bottleneck to their advancement. As a result, either the company gets left behind or the community advances the technology beyond their control. A good example is how .Net has run over Java in the feature race.

In interviews Mark Zuckerberg often talks about in the early 2000’s choosing a platform for a new product was easy, you write for the web. Over the years with the rise of the iPhone/iPads, Androids and Blackberries this decision has become many times more complicated as each device platform comes with its own set of standards and API’s. This leaves us with picking one platform and missing out on potential users or hiring many developers and launching many simultaneous products.

What HTML5 brings to the table is the feature richness to solve this problem. Offline support, local storage, built in multimedia support for rich internet applications(RIA) all supported by all platforms. Build once, deploy to all. Even typing this sounds a bit like a dream but its here now and will be on all platforms in a matter of weeks(When IE9 releases to public).