On January 22nd, 2008, W3C published a working draft for HTML 5, with the latest (4th) draft having been released in March of 2010. There are lots of cool new features that have been added and sweet modifications to HTML in HTML5. Many people will argue that HTML5 will lower the demand for flash in websites and eventually cause flash to fizzle out. I’m am not sure that I am willing t0 jump on that band wagon yet, but HTML5 does seem pretty cool.

The new HTML defines a syntax that is compatible with HTML4, XHTML and XML. There have been several tags that have been deprecated or changed as well as new tags that have been added. Many of the changes are most notable with respect to their use with JavaScript (most notably the CANVAS tag), but there are also some that will effect general HTML coding as well (like the VIDEO and AUDIO tags). While many of the tags are not yet working and it will still be a bit longer before HTML5 is fully accepted, it will be fully accepted as AOL, Apple (big time to cover their butts with the whole Flash terms of service 3.3.1 article), Google, IBM, Microsoft (a bit ironic as IE is the death of all new web technologies), Mozilla, Nokia, Opera, and many hundreds of other vendors are all in full support of HTML5. Taken right for the W3C website “HTML 5 is not a W3C recommendation yet!”, so don’t pitch the HTML4 or XHTML that you have been coding with. This said, learn it now because it will break out soon. But enough banter, what is new and what is better? (more…)