I was also very dubious about HTML 5 until I attended a talk last May given by Mike Smith (http://sideshowbarker.net/ http://sideshowbarker.net/). Slides here (

I was also very dubious about HTML 5 until I attended a talk last May given by Mike Smith (http://sideshowbarker.net/ http://sideshowbarker.net/). Slides here (for what they're worth without the talking to go with them): http://www.slideshare.net/sideshowbarker/html5-and-xhtml2/ http://www.slideshare.net/sideshowbarker/html5-and-xhtml2/ Previously I was quite pro XHTML but now, not so much. Mike mentioned in his talk that he did not think that XHTML 2 specification would ever come to fruition and it appears that he was correct. The XHTML 2 Working Group's charter will expire at the end of this year and not be renewed. So it's looking more and more likely that HTML 5 is our future. Mike seemed like a knowledgeable guy with his head screwed on right. I don't think he and the others working on HTML 5 would be doing anything to set the web back. I'm sure there will be good options for people to validate their HTML 5 mark-up.