Code Overhaul (How and Why I Started Using HTML 5)
A year ago the W3C put the HTML 5 specs into working draft and there it sat. Very little conversation was going on outside of the working groups on what it would take to start using it. Other than some one-off demos around the intertubes, I never saw anyone putting it into practice on their own site.
Surprisingly, the year before the draft was released, there was a lot of talk about contributing to its development – I even wrote about contributing to HTML 5 in 2006 – but after that initial buzz, I really didn’t hear a thing from bloggers during all of 2008.
Is ’09 is the Year of HTML 5?
The new year has hit us and something must be in the water because there are a number of articles that have popped up on how to get started using html5.
I’m really glad it’s starting to hit the mainstream again for one very important reason. If we, as developers and designers, don’t start using it and working with it on a regular basis, we’ll never be able to give the needed feedback before the final draft is released. Who knows how long the momentum would last on new ideas or issues after it reaches its final version in the next couple years.
Already this year there have been a few sites that have launched using some aspects of html5. That’s great, but what they’re doing isn’t much of a major leap from HTML4. They’re still using DIVs for their code but at least they’re getting the word out. (I’m not going to mention names or sites out of mad respect)
Why did I do it?
I decided back in December that the first thing I wanted to do with this site in the new year was to convert all the code to html5. I wanted to kick the tires and be the first kid on the block to do it. Luckily my block doesn’t include Camen Design – seeing his site was what really got me to take the plunge – it was the first time I’d seen a whole site using html5 in practice.
What you should know before you get started
The whole experience was just like when I first learned to do layout in CSS. It drove me crazy for a bit, but eventually I got the hang of it. In fact, I’m not 100% happy with the code but I’ll continue to tweak it and rebuild as I’ve always done.
Firebug tended to be a little weird – having to ignore it in some situations really made me appreciate having it. I thought back to before it existed and man, what a pain it was to have to troubleshoot code. Thank you so much Firebug!
If you want to support IE then you’ll need to register the new elements with a little bit of javascript. John Resig wrote a post on how to get IE to play friendly with HTML5.
Where to start with html5
If you want to be thorough you could read the W3C’s draft of HTML 5 but it’s about 700 printed pages so you’ll probably want to read their Differences from HTML 4.
A List Apart also had a great Intro to HTML5 article from a few months back.
Stay up to date because something might change
You should also know that this whole HTML 5 thing is still being worked on and could change at any moment. So be prepared.
If you want to stay in the loop, keep your feedreader tuned to Magnolia/Tags/html5 or Delicious/Tags/html5