Where now for the web? HTML5?
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Web standards
Over the past few weeks standards adoption has taken a bit of a battering, with W3C and luminaries in the field having to re-evaluate where the web is going. First up is the announcement from W3C on the 2nd July that the XHTML 2 working group will not being having its remit extended beyond 2009 so they can increase efforts on HTML 5 (more on this in a bit). Now I must admit to not being much of a fan of XHTML 2; a lot of the work seemed to be focused towards print and seemed (sorry W3C), somewhat ivory towered. For some one that at time of last review worked daily with XHTML 1, some of the sections seemed plain wrong, but it was still a work in progress.
XHTML2
One of the areas that was good about XHTML 2 was the X part, XML. For those of you that just want your websites to look right, the whole XHTML / HTML debate can seem very trivial. Throw out comments such as "tag soup", "well formedness", "mime-types", etc. mean very little when you're either seeing the page without any difference or looking at an XML error if strict processing is employed. For developers and a smooth push into a slightly more intelligent web, things are different however and these throw out comments become important. Their importance derives not from people viewing web pages, but from machines viewing web pages; if a web page follows the set of rules laid out in XML, programmers like me can quickly pull relevant information from the page to build advanced behaviour in applications. Also XML supports extension (namespaces), that allow further information and meaning to be embedded in the document without changing how it looks.
HTML5
I don't believe XHTML 2 will have many serious mourners, but some of the principles that it engendered will hopefully remain and the baby will not be thrown out with the bathwater. And some of them do remain in the shape of HTML5. From my understanding HTML5 can be (but does not have to be), well formed. So the king is dead, long live the king? Not quite, not all is happy over in HTML5 land either. Various web standards luminaries have written on the subject (external links open in new windows):
- "HTML5 is a Mess" by John Allsop
- HTML5 is a mess by Bruce Lawson
- HTML5 is a mess. Now what? by Jeffery Zeldman
The posts above go into the details far better than I can. From my experiences of the HTML5 specification process (I'm on one of the W3C HTML working group e-mail lists and used to follow WHAT-WG), it has been potentially one of the most open of processes. This is good because it encourages participation and is also bad since a lot of contributors enter with a singular agenda in mind. It seems to have proven fraught, regular squabbles on the lists are more reminiscent of playground fights than a technical process (I am surprised that Hixie's cat has any hair left, let alone Hixie).
HTML4
So the future isn't clear at present, so we stay where we are? On SitePoint today James Edwards, posts "HTML4 considered harmful". HTML4 is the last agreed recommendation of HTML, it's over 10 years old and according to James it's now past its sell by date.
Confused?
Who would try to follow web standards! Red Ant will continue to work with XHTML 1, with our mishmash of tag soup to maintain Internet Explorer compatibility for the time being until things become a little clearer. The one thing that is clear is that the chief winners in this debate at present are proprietary standards such as Flash and Silverlight who's cases grow stronger the longer the debate continues.
Red Ant are leaders in building accessible compliant websites and will always advise our clients of the best practice techniques even when there is so much hype on new technologies.
This blog post was written by Richard Conyard
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