HTML 5.0 Changes Draft

[btiffin]

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-diff-20080122/#new-elements

Of note to me is the ping attribute on anchor tags and its in your face personal hyperlink choice tracking. The rest of it looks like the internet may finally start to be more fun and less frustrating for web developers. Get rid of some of the technical weedy bits and free the creative folk to give us even more interesting stuff.

Cheers

[md]

I still like XHTML and CSS better. HTML5 is a step backwards from an accessibility perspective.

[btiffin]

md @ Wed May 28, 2008 10:32 am wrote:

I still like XHTML and CSS better. HTML5 is a step backwards from an accessibility perspective.

Can't say I agree here. One of the aims of 5.0 is to further separate content and presentation. A quote from the scope

Quote:

The scope of this specification does not include documenting every HTML or DOM feature supported by Web browsers. Browsers support many features that are considered to be very bad for accessibility or that are otherwise inappropriate. For example, the blink element is clearly presentational and authors wishing to cause text to blink should instead use CSS.

I will admit to not going very deep into 5 yet; and also admit to being none to up on 4, 3, 2 or Tim Berners-Lee

Cheers

[Unforgiven]

I think it's very interesting stuff they're doing, but I just can't see it as worth bothering to read up on in great detail. I mean, how well supported is even just CSS 2 supported, and how long has it been out?

I think this image sums it up pretty well.

[jeffgreco13]

Well they spelt "already" wrong in that picture...

[DemonWasp]

Not only are they already changing the web standards, but you also get to hit the elusive target of Internet Explorer...good luck, have fun! Enjoy going slowly insane as IE tells you that there is error after error on line 1,476 of your 25-line HTML document. Hear the Chaos Gods speak clearly after discovering that IE completely ignores DTD-Strict in favour of using DTD-Loose, just because! Revel in the stupefying horror of the browser that just won't play nice with CSS and DOM manipulation.

/rant.

[jeffgreco13]

I really do despise IE with a passion. I try my absolute best to make my sites compatible with all browsers and IE always chaps my ass... pardon my french.

At work Im working with a dilemma though that I'm stuck using the OLG standardized IE browser. I downloaded firefox and installed it, but with my subpar computer it often flakes out on me.

Things can never be easy... just because no one wants to play nice and keep things standard.

[DemonWasp]

If you're working with IE, one of the best things you can do is make sure all your JS is up to spec. Use a verifier like http://www.jslint.com/ and that will more or less guarantee that your code will run under all browsers (assuming, of course, that you pass the validation).

[btiffin]

Umm, IE even fails on transparencies. Joke.

And along with jeff; no ONE wants to play nice (and risk offering choice).

Cheers

[Brightguy]

What do you mean by "in your face"?

Interesting how XHTML2 and 5 are sort of going in different directions. HTML5 seems rather down-to-earth, but part of me just wants to say "forget backwards compatibility"!

Unforgiven @ Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:57 am wrote:

I mean, how well supported is even just CSS 2 supported, and how long has it been out?

CSS2 was published in 1998, and all modern browsers support most of CSS2.1 (but none are perfect).

[btiffin]

Brightguy @ Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:04 pm wrote:

What do you mean by "in your face"?

Well, when I click a link to debian.org while visiting distrowatch.com, I don't want to look at the page source and see the anchor tag has ping="microsoft.com/getthelinuxuser, sellmorewindows.com"> That's "in my face". If someone gets paid to track my surfing, I want that to stay hidden in some server side script; so I don't get ticked off for knowing.

Note: made up example. distrowatch.com is a good site imho, and no slight was intended.
Cheers

[Brightguy]

I don't see the disadvantage, it seems like a useful and simple solution.

If you run a website, you can see which links lead people to your site and which pages they are viewing, but you can't see which outbound links they are clicking on. If you really need to know, you use the standard ugly hack of linking to something like redirect.php?url=http://example.com/

And this causes those that prefer not to be tracked to manually extract the URL from the redirect link on every site they visit... as opposed to just configuring their user agent to ignore the ping attribute.

[btiffin]

Oh, I'm being a little facetious. Yes, I agree it will make for more openness. And it will be easier for websites to earn the click millicents, that they deserve.

But still ... it's like the difference between thinking the American government spies on all Canadian internet traffic and knowing they spy on us.

Cheers,
google Echelon if you want the deets on when and how and the NSA spies on everyone that is not a US citizen. It's not a big deal really, but it kinda sucks knowing. I'd almost rather not know.