HTML is the foundation of the web, the core language that all web pages are written in. Like all coding languages it has gone through a series of revisions, and currently stands at version 4.01 – where it has been stuck since 1999.
So HTML 4.01 has been around for 10 years, which is a long time when it comes to the internet. Things have moved on a lot since then – the web is now increasingly interactive and many sites are more like applications than sets of pages, as they were predominantly back in 1999. And, as the web has progressed, it has increasingly been straining the bounds of what is possible with the current HTML specs, which is why the long-awaited next revision, HTML 5, has been getting a lot of people (read: developers) excited recently.
What will an HTML 5 web look like?
HTML 5 offers the promise of native support for video and audio playback, something that currently requires proprietary browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight to achieve. Why does this matter? Because the web is built and has succeeded due to its use of open, non-proprietary standards, and these browser plugins break that paradigm. What happens if Adobe goes bust and stops developing its Flash Player? Or decides to start charging for its usage? With native support for audio and video, the web is no longer reliant on one commercial entity, which is a very good thing. It also includes native APIs for doing drawing on the web, via the <canvas> element.
HTML 5 will also bring in a new era of accessibility tools which will greatly benefit web users with disabilities. It also includes better tools for the developing of web applications and user-interaction elements of pages such as web forms, all of which will eventually lead to a greatly improved experience for users.
And last, but by no means least, HTML 5 will allow developers to mark up their documents in a more semantic manner than is currently possible. Whilst the average web user wont notice the difference, this is an important step in keeping the web well structured and as accessible as possible to both people and entities such as search engines and whatever tools appear in the future to help us navigate the vast pool of knowledge that exists on the internet.
There is a lot more to HTML 5, but that about covers the highlights.
So when will HTML 5 be ready for use?
Well, currently the spec is in ‘working draft’ form, and the bad news is that it’s expected finalisation date is… 2022. Yep, in thirteen years time. But don’t worry! The majority of browser vendors are already implementing parts of the draft spec (with the newly released Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.0 leading the pack), and in the next couple of years we will start to see plenty of sites starting to use elements of HTML 5. In fact, sites such as uxlondon.com are already sporting a shiny new HTML 5 doctype. And our own VGroup site will soon be getting a bit of a revamp to incorporate some HTML5 goodness, so keep watching this space!