3 ms·

I still come across people using the term HTML5 as if it's "a thing". For example "our system has been updated to HTML5". Whereas HTML5 spans more than a decad

I still come across people using the term HTML5 as if it's "a thing". For example "our system has been updated to HTML5". Whereas HTML5 spans more than a decade of continuous browser improvement and extension. It is an "era" or "mindset" not a "specification". HTML5 was a way of discarding the mindset of "versioning the web" - now browsers implement specific functionality as they choose. The Web Serial API might be in this "HTML5 browser" but not in that "HTML5 browser". The number is misleading in that sense. It implies a fixed moment in time. And it does that but only in a "before and after" sense.

Brajeshwar 2y ago
HTML5 was the last time it had a marketing version number. Henceforth, it was agreed to be just HTML. Now, it is like people saying Web 5, Industry 7, or something like that. It is no longer “the way” and is more of a cringe. Saying Web 2.0 was kind of like more of a big upgrade signifying a leap and a lot less about versioning. I’ve fond memories of the term “HTML5”. I sold the domain html5.in to an agent who was buying for Microsoft. The Microsoft part was discovered later after I sold it for single digit thousand dollars.
userbinator 2y ago
now browsers implement specific functionality as they choose. Make that "browser", as in singular, and replace "they" with "Google", the same ones who came up with the oxymoron "living standard".
- bruce511 2y ago
  Yes and no. Yes Chrome (and Chrome derivatives) have a lot of market share. But Safari is important if only because of iDevices. And Firefox is still I the mix - single digit market share still adds up to a lot of users.
- _the_inflator 2y ago
  I reject this notion wholeheartedly. Ian Hickson’s steadfast commitment to web standards and rejection of the xHTML bandwagon who did not understand the difference between catastrophic failure and silent failures and its implications accordingly build the foundation of everything we have now that is called web. Web Development back then was a total mess and he alone took matters in his hands for the better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Hickson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Hickson While others evolved into spec warriors, Hixi put users and usability first by looking beyond specs. He is an unsung hero whose contributions made the difference. He faced so much hostility, yet was the only one who maintained and understood every aspect of these specs. One after another he won open standard evangelists over. It is like Linux vs Windows and not Google vs the rest.
  - Devasta 2y ago
    In Hicksons own words: "The reality is that for all of the work that we've put into HTML, and CSS, and the DOM, it has fundamentally utterly failed to deliver on its promise. It's even worse than that, actually, because all of the things we've built aren't just not doing what we want, they're holding developers back. People build their applications on frameworks that _abstract out_ all the APIs we build for browsers, and _even with those frameworks_ developers are hamstrung by weird limitations of the web." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34622514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34622514 We can pretend that the W3C eggheads were up there in ivory towers with no understanding of how the web should move forward, but the reality is that a lot of modern web dev is tree like data structures being sent across the web to be rendered with client side templates, exactly what they were aiming for with XML and XSLT. Namespaces, custom elements, client side templating and more, the web had it all and threw it away so that we can instead spend the next century reimplementing worse versions of what XML provided out of the box.
    - johnthescott 2y ago
      xslt failed due to an international shortage of greater-less than characters. apologies to SKB.
- bazoom42 2y ago
  It is the same for Safari and Firefox. Browsers never honored the “versions” of HTML (2.0, 3.2, 4.0 etc) but implemented features piecemal. Html 4.0 meticously specified various doctypes and the associated semantics, but no mainstream browser have ever supported any of this.
arp242 2y ago
HTML5 is actually an acronym, it stands for "Cool Shit That Won't Work In IE6". Unfortunately someone typo'd it a bit, so like Referer we're stuck with it now.
treve 2y ago
For a bit I think HTML5 was a bit of a short-hand for 'we're doing modern, javascript heavy app'. Now I think HTML5 on a job description is just a default, with the '5' void of meaning. There's only HTML5
tannhaeuser 2y ago
Actually, W3C published a number of HTML specs under the "HTML 5" moniker beginning in 2014 ([html5]) until 2017 ([html52]) based on (the loose group of people on github mostly working for Google on Chrome called) WHATWG's HTML specs. From 2020 on W3C again attempted to publish WHATWG snapshots, without redaction this time around; the January, 2020 snapshot ([html2001]) is the only one that made it into a W3C recommendation under that process, while later snapshots were rejected and simply no new snapshot was reviewed by W3C, Inc.'s HTML working group since (whose chapter is closing down these days last I checked). [is-this-html6] has the details, but in a nutshell, the so-called "HTML5 outlining algorithm" spec, one of Ian Hickson's innovations going along with "main", "header", and "footer" elements and the concept of sectioning roots that never was implemented/honored in browsers was removed by Steve Faulkner going to great lengths editing the upstream WHATWG HTML spec. So in this sense, as is argued by the linked blog post, "HTML 5" refers to those W3C specs, while "HTML 2020" could refer to later specs. [html5]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/ [html52]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-html52-20171214/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-html52-20171214/ [html2001]: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/review-drafts/2020-01/ https://html.spec.whatwg.org/review-drafts/2020-01/ [is-this-html6]: https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html
arendtio 2y ago
This is somewhat true, but where do we stand a decade after we got HTML5? Most browsers use Webkit/Chromium under the hood (because nobody wants to compete in the race anymore), and building a new browser from scratch seems impossible. I wonder if there is a causality between ditching versions and browser vendors exiting the development of their own engines.
threatofrain 2y ago
No, the evergreen WHATWG HTML is the living standard. HTML5 is no more the living standard than is HTML4, both of which were by W3C. And after years of battle W3C officially forfeited the race, thus making the WHATWG living standard to be the de facto winner. (Edit)
- assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  W3C
  - threatofrain 2y ago
    Thanks.

Brajeshwar 2y ago

HTML5 was the last time it had a marketing version number. Henceforth, it was agreed to be just HTML. Now, it is like people saying Web 5, Industry 7, or something like that. It is no longer “the way” and is more of a cringe. Saying Web 2.0 was kind of like more of a big upgrade signifying a leap and a lot less about versioning. I’ve fond memories of the term “HTML5”. I sold the domain html5.in to an agent who was buying for Microsoft. The Microsoft part was discovered later after I sold it for single digit thousand dollars.

userbinator 2y ago

now browsers implement specific functionality as they choose. Make that "browser", as in singular, and replace "they" with "Google", the same ones who came up with the oxymoron "living standard".

bruce511 2y ago
Yes and no. Yes Chrome (and Chrome derivatives) have a lot of market share. But Safari is important if only because of iDevices. And Firefox is still I the mix - single digit market share still adds up to a lot of users.
_the_inflator 2y ago
I reject this notion wholeheartedly. Ian Hickson’s steadfast commitment to web standards and rejection of the xHTML bandwagon who did not understand the difference between catastrophic failure and silent failures and its implications accordingly build the foundation of everything we have now that is called web. Web Development back then was a total mess and he alone took matters in his hands for the better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Hickson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Hickson While others evolved into spec warriors, Hixi put users and usability first by looking beyond specs. He is an unsung hero whose contributions made the difference. He faced so much hostility, yet was the only one who maintained and understood every aspect of these specs. One after another he won open standard evangelists over. It is like Linux vs Windows and not Google vs the rest.
- Devasta 2y ago
  In Hicksons own words: "The reality is that for all of the work that we've put into HTML, and CSS, and the DOM, it has fundamentally utterly failed to deliver on its promise. It's even worse than that, actually, because all of the things we've built aren't just not doing what we want, they're holding developers back. People build their applications on frameworks that _abstract out_ all the APIs we build for browsers, and _even with those frameworks_ developers are hamstrung by weird limitations of the web." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34622514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34622514 We can pretend that the W3C eggheads were up there in ivory towers with no understanding of how the web should move forward, but the reality is that a lot of modern web dev is tree like data structures being sent across the web to be rendered with client side templates, exactly what they were aiming for with XML and XSLT. Namespaces, custom elements, client side templating and more, the web had it all and threw it away so that we can instead spend the next century reimplementing worse versions of what XML provided out of the box.
  - johnthescott 2y ago
    xslt failed due to an international shortage of greater-less than characters. apologies to SKB.
bazoom42 2y ago
It is the same for Safari and Firefox. Browsers never honored the “versions” of HTML (2.0, 3.2, 4.0 etc) but implemented features piecemal. Html 4.0 meticously specified various doctypes and the associated semantics, but no mainstream browser have ever supported any of this.

arp242 2y ago

HTML5 is actually an acronym, it stands for "Cool Shit That Won't Work In IE6". Unfortunately someone typo'd it a bit, so like Referer we're stuck with it now.

treve 2y ago

For a bit I think HTML5 was a bit of a short-hand for 'we're doing modern, javascript heavy app'. Now I think HTML5 on a job description is just a default, with the '5' void of meaning. There's only HTML5

tannhaeuser 2y ago

Actually, W3C published a number of HTML specs under the "HTML 5" moniker beginning in 2014 ([html5]) until 2017 ([html52]) based on (the loose group of people on github mostly working for Google on Chrome called) WHATWG's HTML specs. From 2020 on W3C again attempted to publish WHATWG snapshots, without redaction this time around; the January, 2020 snapshot ([html2001]) is the only one that made it into a W3C recommendation under that process, while later snapshots were rejected and simply no new snapshot was reviewed by W3C, Inc.'s HTML working group since (whose chapter is closing down these days last I checked). [is-this-html6] has the details, but in a nutshell, the so-called "HTML5 outlining algorithm" spec, one of Ian Hickson's innovations going along with "main", "header", and "footer" elements and the concept of sectioning roots that never was implemented/honored in browsers was removed by Steve Faulkner going to great lengths editing the upstream WHATWG HTML spec. So in this sense, as is argued by the linked blog post, "HTML 5" refers to those W3C specs, while "HTML 2020" could refer to later specs. [html5]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/ [html52]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-html52-20171214/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC-html52-20171214/ [html2001]: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/review-drafts/2020-01/ https://html.spec.whatwg.org/review-drafts/2020-01/ [is-this-html6]: https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html

arendtio 2y ago

This is somewhat true, but where do we stand a decade after we got HTML5? Most browsers use Webkit/Chromium under the hood (because nobody wants to compete in the race anymore), and building a new browser from scratch seems impossible. I wonder if there is a causality between ditching versions and browser vendors exiting the development of their own engines.

threatofrain 2y ago

No, the evergreen WHATWG HTML is the living standard. HTML5 is no more the living standard than is HTML4, both of which were by W3C. And after years of battle W3C officially forfeited the race, thus making the WHATWG living standard to be the de facto winner. (Edit)

assimpleaspossi 2y ago
W3C
- threatofrain 2y ago
  Thanks.