Exciting Times

These are exciting times and the new HTML standard brings with it a host of new possibilities that have the potential to turn "boring old HTML" into a far more feature rich markup language.

However, like all new technologies, just because HTML5 is here, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will suddenly become the de facto standard. For instance, it's taken this long just for some browsers to become fully supportive of things such as CSS2; a standard that was first born in 1998! That said, there are lots of exciting facilities available in HTML5, and if all browsers magically became compliant tomorrow, there would be a very good reason to start using some of them.

But of course, that's not the case, and old non-HTML5 browsers will stay in existence for some time to come, while new ones will fail to implement the new standards properly. For that reason, I won't necessarily be deploying HTML5 on my clients' websites in the near future. I'll certainly be keeping abreast of the developments though, and it's going to be interesting to start experimenting on pet-projects.

When to start using HTML5

The time it takes for HTML5 to become viable for deployment on client websites completely depends on the speed of uptake in the browser industry. News such as the launch of the Apple iPad has brought much more pressure on the early adoption of HTML5 for instance, as the iPad (and iPhone) don't support Adobe Flash and therefore can't play the majority of web-delivered video. However HTML5 has built in video streaming support, so any websites that deliver their video in HTML5 will be playable on the iPad or iPhone once they are fully supportive of HTML5. Worrying news for Adobe shareholders perhaps and it's been widely reported that Steve Jobs isn't too impressed by Adobe (or Google for that matter!).

Anyway, HTML5 is here and it looks great. But it's only one for the geeks at the moment.

UPDATE: I've since started building sites in HTML5...!