Welcome to part 3 of my series: “Top 5 Questions People Ask Me About HTML5.” In the previous two newsletters, I explained what HTML5 is and why it’s important. In this newsletter, I’m going to answer one of the lingering, but soon to be totally resolved, doubts about HTML5:
“You say that HTML5 isn’t yet a standard. Is HTML5 safe to use?” OR “My web guy wants to redesign our site with HTML5. Is that ok?”
The short answer is YES.
The long answer is: Yes. HTML5 has been in the works since 2004. That’s almost 10 years, for those of you who are counting. During that time, many people, companies, and organizations have reviewed the spec and suggested changes. Some of these changes have been adopted, and others have been discarded. The standards body that sets the official rules of the web, the World Wide Web Consortium, has gone through its slow-moving and very exhaustive process of vetting and testing, and in December of 2012, HTML5 became what’s known as a Candidate Recommendation.
The Candidate Recommendation status means that the technology is not going to undergo significant changes before becoming a standard, but it needs to be tested further and jump through a few more hoops before becoming a full “recommendation”. HTML5 is expected to become a full recommendation in 2014.
So, what does all this mean to you, who may have only learned what HTML5 actually is last week? Take a look at the graphic below, from HTML5test.com. HTML5test.com scores browsers based on a 0 to 500 point scale based on how well they support HTML5’s many many features.
In my opinion, a score over 300 is good enough for a browser to say that it “supports HTML5.” Even 2 years ago, browsers weren’t yet ready for HTML5. Today, however, the vast majority of HTML5’s features are supported by most browsers.
This chart also demonstrates quite nicely why I recommend that students in my online class use Chrome, and why web developers don’t like Internet Explorer.
The ultimate goal of HTML5 is for every web browser to get a score of 500 on this test. At that point, we’ll know for certain that properly written HTML will do what it’s supposed to do. But, before that can happen, the spec needs more testing, browsers need updating, and more web developers need to be educated on how to write HTML5.
In my next newsletter, I’ll take on another one of the top 5 questions I get about HTML5. Do you have a question? Let me know!
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Chris Minnick
p.s. A new session of my online class, Creating Mobile Apps with HTML5 just started! Visit our site to sign up or to view the first lesson!
p.p.s. I’m working on a new 1-day class on mobile web app development, to be taught at Sacramento’s Hacker Lab on Saturday, November 23. Space will be limited. Stay tuned for more information and a link to the signup form!