4 ms·

I can see the point of using the video tag, because you can achieve better compatibility (iPhone!) and a smother experience (no Flash player crashes with native

by ned 17y ago

I can see the point of using the video tag, because you can achieve better compatibility (iPhone!) and a smother experience (no Flash player crashes with native video support). But I don't see the real benefit of using the tags that only provide more "semantic" value, like section, header, aside, nav, etc. The code clarity you get from it offset by the cludges described in the article that you have to use to ensure compatibility (FF2, IE6 and 7, etc).

adamhowell 17y ago
As far as I can tell only one "cludge" for all of IE (one JS file). I really couldn't care less about FF2. View source here -- http://2009.full-frontal.org/ http://2009.full-frontal.org/ -- then visit it in IE. Works great. DIVs weren't meant to be the only way to style w/o tables. For a front-end guy like me, this is pretty cool. (Also, more about the "HTML shiv" approach they're using is here: http://ejohn.org/blog/html5-shiv/ http://ejohn.org/blog/html5-shiv/)
warfangle 17y ago
Semantic HTML5 elements are necessary for accessibility and machine-parsing of your content, which increases findability. What this means pragmatically: Screen readers will be able to more intelligently interact with a website. Navigation, for example, could only be read out loud when the user requests it instead of every time a page loads. Search engines, when parsing your page, will be able to more easily get a general idea of what the page is about. Right now we can only tell headers, paragraphs, and lists; with HTML5 parsers will be able to not only determine the former, but also which content is more important. The more semantic the markup, the more a machine-parser can figure out about the meaning behind a page. It's the same argument as a mass of divs and spans (or tables!) versus h1s, paragraphs, and dls. Ultimately, not only does it add context to your content, but it makes it easier and more concise to produce the markup: you don't need <div class="aside"></div> anymore - you just need <aside></aside>.

by ned 17y ago

adamhowell 17y ago

As far as I can tell only one "cludge" for all of IE (one JS file). I really couldn't care less about FF2. View source here -- http://2009.full-frontal.org/ http://2009.full-frontal.org/ -- then visit it in IE. Works great. DIVs weren't meant to be the only way to style w/o tables. For a front-end guy like me, this is pretty cool. (Also, more about the "HTML shiv" approach they're using is here: http://ejohn.org/blog/html5-shiv/ http://ejohn.org/blog/html5-shiv/)

warfangle 17y ago

Semantic HTML5 elements are necessary for accessibility and machine-parsing of your content, which increases findability. What this means pragmatically: Screen readers will be able to more intelligently interact with a website. Navigation, for example, could only be read out loud when the user requests it instead of every time a page loads. Search engines, when parsing your page, will be able to more easily get a general idea of what the page is about. Right now we can only tell headers, paragraphs, and lists; with HTML5 parsers will be able to not only determine the former, but also which content is more important. The more semantic the markup, the more a machine-parser can figure out about the meaning behind a page. It's the same argument as a mass of divs and spans (or tables!) versus h1s, paragraphs, and dls. Ultimately, not only does it add context to your content, but it makes it easier and more concise to produce the markup: you don't need <div class="aside"></div> anymore - you just need <aside></aside>.