The early 1990′s were exciting times for the web. Everything was new, exciting discoveries were just around the next click on the web ring, and making web pages was fun. HTML made coding easy because the language was simple. You could churn out a page complete with blinking text in no time. Awesome stuff, especially for people that weren’t quite as enamoured of Basic or C.
Once the Netscape and Microsoft browser wars really got into full swing things got complicated quickly with custom tags littering the battlefield. Then came really complicated bits like JavaScript, Flash, Java, and the list goes on.
Along the way HTML got butchered. The simple language for sharing documents and images became a stepping stone for bloated, ugly code and browser incompatibilities.
It’s been a long winding road for the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3). They are the standards organization that tries to look after things like HTML. Since just before 2000, they’ve been trying to rein things back in and bring the additional power that JavaScript, Flash, and other add-ons brought to the web back to a single standards based format. With HTML 5 it feels like things are very back on track.
The simplification of Doc Types and the addition of tags like <audio> and <video> that make embedding music and movies a snap is one short example. I was able to whip out a quick page with both mp3 files and home movies in minutes – moreover it worked seamlessly – without Flash, without Javascript or anything thing else to muck up the works or add unnecessary lines of code.
Easy, just like it used to be.
Want to try it for yourself? Check out this link on embedding some video.
It’s no wonder Google and Apple are on top of this and making sure their browsers are HTML 5 compliant. Lower processing overheads, faster load times and a richer browsing experience are their money-makers. All this also makes sense why Apple never pushed Flash onto the iPhone (though, perhaps, they were ahead a few too many steps).
I, for one, welcome our HTML 5 overlords!
