HTML5, CSS3, and related technologies

[Nytro]

HTML5, CSS3, and related technologies

Rob Larsen, Interface Architect, Isobar

Summary: Many technologies are informally lumped under the "HTML5" banner. This article helps clear up any confusion about what's in and what's out of the HTML specification, while shining light on the technologies themselves, such as the many CSS3 modules.

Web standard development and marketing

It's a great time to be a web developer. After a long period of hibernation, the standards bodies and browser vendors have been extremely busy over the past few years, generating a torrent of exciting technology. Developers are greedily seizing on this work, producing demos and full-blown applications at a steady pace. Fed by this activity and further boosted by the growth of their standards-capable mobile browsers, companies like Google and Apple are using these new standards to market their products and services. The wider press is also seizing on this wave and pushing standards hype well beyond the normal circle of web developers and browser vendors.

This volume of discussion has obvious benefits, of course. People getting excited about web standards is a positive development for everyone in the industry. From that perspective, the persistent use of blanket terms, especially HTML5, as a sort of brand shorthand for "emerging web technology" is a useful shortcut. It allows nontechnical people to grasp—in a generalized way—the exciting work being done in the standards space right now.

Interestingly, even the W3C has gotten into the act, using HTML5 and its associated logo (see Figure 1) to publicize the "web platform."

On the downside, the volume of the specification work being done, coupled with the fast-and-loose labeling has created a bit of confusion, even in the developer community, surrounding the specifications themselves. Unless you're paying close attention to the volume of work, there's a real chance you'll get lost in the acronym soup of standards being generated.

This article helps to clear up any confusion surrounding the ongoing standards work. It outlines the major standards efforts and provides a handy guide to the technologies themselves.

Articol:

www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-webstandards/index.html