Time to learn, or learn about, HTML5

[GreyGeek]

http://diveintohtml5.org/introduction.html

Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in the early 1990s. He later founded the W3C to act as a steward of web standards, which the organization has done for more than 15 years. Here is what the W3C had to say about the future of web standards, in July 2009:

Today the Director announces that when the XHTML 2 Working Group charter expires as scheduled at the end of 2009, the charter will not be renewed. By doing so, and by increasing resources in the HTML Working Group, W3C hopes to accelerate the progress of HTML5 and clarify W3C’s position regarding the future of HTML.

HTML5 is here to stay.

Dive in!

[theread]

Re: Time to learn, or learn about, HTML5

Hi Grey Geek,

I never thought HTML5 would go away!

Time for some books, I see Amazon (in the UK) are selling HTML5 Up and Running for half price. I am a bit of an O'Reilly fan so will probably get it (pension only goes so far...)

Cheers

Roy

[buckeyered80]

Re: Time to learn, or learn about, HTML5

I think HTML5 will be a huge move forward for Linux. It will also help out the Mac OS X crowd. I am excited to see how it moves forward from here.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Time to learn, or learn about, HTML5

HTML5 also appears to be the reason why Windows 8 won't be using .NET as much as those who spent time and treasure learning Microsoft's replacement for Java wanted it to be. The Microsoft forum announcing Windows 8 was flooded with .NET developers complaining about Microsoft kicking them to the curb. One person remarking on Win8 posted:

Ah, all of this nonsense, just what's meant by, 'an opiate for the masses'. "Oooh, a new start button! Can't wait!" "Oooh, yet another app store! Can't wait!" "Oooh, a phony new futuristic file system! Can't wait!" "Oooh, native ISO mounting! Can't wait!" "Oooh, IE10! Don't know why, but I (gag) can't wait!"

The reality remains that none of this fluff will address the core problem, will not repair the damage already done - that Microsoft has forever alienated the developer community on which any real or imagined ecosystem must rely.

HTML5 and JavaScript - still not the least bit interested - and even if we were, there's nothing down that path worthy of anchoring us to the Windows platform, and this meaning that the Redmond brain trust has sown the seeds of its own destruction such that Google and Apple with thrive, while Microsoft will wither and die.

Azure? Nope, not garnering massive developer support there either - others, like Amazon, will thrive, while Microsoft will wither and die. The only magic capable of weaving together the most formidable ecosystem possible, capable of spanning a previously unimaginable number of platforms, capable of making Azure the most powerful choice possible and capable of inspiring massive developer support - and as yet, unimagined creativity and innovation - Redmond's finest creation, now and forever? Silverlight. That's right, Silverlight. And it's all but dead, by Redmond's own hand, betrayed by its creator, killed by the clueless. Let's be clear - if that which rocks the world, start to finish, at Build is anything but Silverlight, itself somehow rising from the ashes like a phoenix, reigniting passionate belief in all that's possible within the hearts and minds of Microsoft's developer community, then no amount of glitter, no amount of free handouts or jive from empty suits will save them. For the writing will be otherwise on the wall - that the Redmond era of dominance has ended, the magic is gone and all that follows will too soon go the way of the TouchPad and webOS - simply dust beneath our feet...

The .NET/SilverLight developers are desperate enough to create a petition to Microsoft to resume support for SilverLight: http://forums.silverlight.net/t/230744.aspx

An Open Plea by Silverlight and WPF Developers to Fully Support These Wonderful MS .NET Platforms in Windows 8 in Addition to the New HTML5 Platform

WPF and Silverlight developers have valid reasons to be concerned that the Microsoft .NET UI platforms they have grown to love and support – because they’re the best in the world – are being demoted in Windows 8 in a way that could relegate them to a place of obscurity. This place of obscurity could even be a way of letting them ‘die on the vine,’ if indeed they were no longer put forth as platforms of the future, and supported as such. We would like to know: Do Silverlight and WPF have an integral, irreplaceable, and front-facing role to play in Windows 8 and in the future?

I can sympathize with them. About 10 years ago the place where I worked had made the leap from FoxPro for DOS to Visual FoxPro. I even got VFP to run under WINE on Linux, but not well enough to switch to. Shortly after we upgraded to VFP 6.0, Microsoft announced on the UniversalThread, the watering hole for VFP programmers, that they were dropping VFP6 in favor of .NET & C#. The outrage was palpable. Microsoft was so taken back by the volume of the expressed outrage that they retract and said that they would continue to support and develop VFP. What they did was deceptive. A collection of little bug fixes became a version releases. In 2005 they began PR about "Sedona", which turned out to be VFP 9.0, which was "released" in beta and formally released in 2008. No future releases will be forth coming and VFP 9 will be "supported" until 2015. Meanwhile, they continued to assign MVP awards to influential VFP developers who, like pied pipers, led the children out of the village, and were rewarded with jobs and other perks. It's hard to say how many of the 325,000 VFP programmers around the world at that time decided, as I did, to drop VFP and not go to .NET, but began looking for other tools. Within a year I settled on Qt3, which shortly was replaced by Qt4. I am very glad I made that move. Qt is the best GUI RAD Tool I've ever used, and I've used a lot of them.

I have no doubt that Microsoft will attempt to do with HTML5 what it has done with other standards; embrace, extend and extinguish if they can, or control if they cannot. The BEST way to avoid that lock in is to avoid using Windows or, at least, Internet Explorer. Already IE is used by only 20% of Win7 users and FireFox is at nearly 14% for Win7 users. In the past IE had a superior market share and web designers used MS tools to create web pages. Those tools automatically included proprietary modifications to HTML code without the developer's notice or approval. Running Front Page they were only concerned with how their page looked, not how many couldn't read it because they didn't use IE.

Now that IE has only about 40% of the browser market share developers have become more conscience of the necessity of neutral HTML code, and as IE's market share continues to drop Microsoft's grip on the face of the Internet continues to shrink as well. That doesn't mean it will give up. Just recall the ISO fiasco in which MS paid 3rd party companies which depended on Windows to join ISO committee groups in order to stuff the ISO ballot box in favor of their "standard", which even now has not been implemented by them. After the vote these new members ignored their committee responsibilities, bring the work of the ISO standards committees to a standstill. After the vote one of the regional directors of the ISO Standards org became a Microsoft employee. ISO hasn't really recovered from the debacle and the appearance, if not fact, that a standard is for sale to the highest bidder. Serves ISO right.

[blobfish]

Re: Time to learn, or learn about, HTML5

No thanks.