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Wednesday 3 June 2015

HTML5, Not Just a Version Number (Part 1)

The number in HTML5 means something more than a mere version. It doesn't identify only a markup language but an environment, with, at least, three languages (HTML v.5, CSS v.3 and Javascript) in a pattern, surrounded by a collective strenght to share prototypes and best practices.
An ecosystem strongly oriented to provide web-services, born with a discreet awareness for the future of the web, the abstraction of users wants/needs and the background of the technology frustrations that troubled the Internet in the past decade.


UNITED WE STAND


Complexity against Flexibility


The only HTML had a learning curve considerably low, I learnt how to mark-up in 1996 in few hours, now you need to master two different languages, HTML and CSS, and well know a third one: Javascript, that's prototype-based.


Cerberus was a hell dog with three heads.

HTML5 is a job framework strongly based on Separation of Concerns (SoC):
  • HTML for contents, 
  • CSS for presentation,
  • JS for interaction.
A good explanation of this structure and of its benefits is here:
Lukily, this growth in complexity is partially offset by flexibility, despite past SGML-oriented rules, HTML5 introduces some semplifications, for instance:
  • an easy and clear doctype <!DOCTYPE html>
  • the charset meta tag is simplified
  • you don't need to write standalone tags with end slash like <br />, mandatory in older versions, because <br> can't have a closing tag,
  • quotes around attributes are optionals (except for multiple values, like in CLASS).
Moreover CSS3 includes a lot of out-of-the-box new features like:
  • media queries, pseudo-classes
  • rotations, traslations, tranformations, 
  • gradients, aplha channels, shadows, rounded corners.
This harder approach has in the Internet and in Free Software/Open Source principles two great allies. I never see a greater collective strenght (except for GNU/Linux) to:
  • share good code, 
  • define best practices 
  • build free working prototypes.
Everyone can meet this strenght in plataforms like:
And also the big market players, already deeply involved in the evolution of HTML5, seem engaged in this effort:

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