OReilly What Is HTML5 (2011).pdf

What Is HTML5?

Brett McLaughlin

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What Is HTML5?

by Brett McLaughlin

Printing History:

ISBN: 978-1-449-31035-6

1310507581

Table of Contents

What Is HTML5? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A return to first principles

HTML5: Still connecting things

HTML5 connections are the new rich media

JavaScript isn’t the focus of HTML5 ... right?

Container-based web pages: A step (sort of) in the right direction

The canvas element is a programmable div

Mobile: Killer application, ho-hum client

... and a partridge and a pear tree

What Is HTML5?

Once you really understand HTML5, you’ll change the way you think about the web.

• “A return to first principles” on page 2

• “HTML5: Still connecting things” on page 2

• “HTML5 connections are the new rich media” on page 3

• “JavaScript isn’t the focus of HTML5 ... right?” on page 5

• “Container-based web pages: A step (sort of) in the right direction” on page 6

• “The canvas element is a programmable div” on page 9

• “Mobile: Killer application, ho-hum client” on page 10

• “... and a partridge and a pear tree” on page 11

HTML5: Everyone’s using it, nobody knows what it is. I realize that sounds more like

a line out of an existential movie — maybe Waiting for Godot or a screenplay by Sartre

— than a statement about HTML5. But it’s really the truth: most of the people using

HTML5 are treating it as HTML4+, or even worse, HTML4 (and some stuff they don’t

use). The result? A real delay in the paradigm shift that HTML5 is almost certain to

bring. It’s certainly not time to look away, because by the time you look back, you may

have missed something really important: a subtle but important transition centered

around HTML5.

In this post, I want to take a deeper look at HTML5. I have a simple proposition with

a lot of complex consequences: HTML5 is both something entirely new, and yet noth-