Too early to accept HTML 5?

Question

HTML 5 has interesting features for developers and users, but if clients still require support for older browsers, should the developer / developer go for HTML 5? Or you need to stick with the old old ways using JavaScript, flex, and flash libraries for heavy lifting.

If you accept HTML 5 too soon, how long do you think you will need to use the HTML 5 features for a large web application? (hear a large application that still reaches a huge number of users with a different combination of OS and browsers)

Do you think HTML5 will bear all the problems (cross-browser content) that web developers have been facing for a decade, or will it make life easier?

Answer 1

In a word: Yes.

STILL people use IE6 and will use IE7 for many years to come. If you are creating a public application, then you need to consider browsers that can be used by millions of potential visitors.

There are features that will degrade gracefully, and they are great.

If you are creating a web application that is not publicly available, you can use whatever you want. I do a lot of development work where the final project is limited to a specific browser, but in those cases the application is never available to the public.

The site has some very good articles on this subject:

• http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/html-5-snapshot-2009
• http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/26/html-5-now-or-never/

In addition, check which browsers support some new features (or were here):

• http://a.deveria.com/caniuse/

Answer 2

No, I think it's not early.

Get started now and slowly start accepting new items (except video / audio, as they are least supported). For IE, you have a JS solution that adds new elements and adds the ability to style them.

Try it, really. You will see how easy it is to tag your document :)

Answer 3

When people talk about “cross-browser issues,” they almost always mean “IE issues.” Modern browsers, that is, nothing but IE, pretty much work well with modern standards and practice, and go out over the network only for IE, it's just sad.

There are several ways to bypass JavaScript so that older, non-standard browsers such as IE work with HTML5, although I don’t remember them from the head, but some parts of HTML5 can easily work in IE; such as new items aside, section, etc.

In my situation, we simply completed the ecommerce solution using HTML5 elements without any problems, but had to include workarounds and hacks for IE.

Answer 4

Naturally, you need to consider the audience. Check your analytics. But there are great tools if you want to take advantage of the benefits without leaving everyone behind:

<!--[if IE]> <script src="http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script> <![endif]--> 

I also recommend that you take some time at html5doctor.com, where they will discuss what they can and cannot use now. The really cool resource they are working on is html5 reset: html5doctor.com/html-5-reset-stylesheet/

Oh and use ogg;)

Answer 5

I recommend that you use any new feature that you find interesting, but make it degrade gracefully . It may be a bit of work, but it is what you choose if you go beyond using libraries. However, you will probably learn some very valuable skills.

Answer 6

Using HTML 5 is not an all-or-nothing solution, just like CSS3, there are special features that you can start using today that will improve your sites for browsers that can use them.

It is up to you to decide what these functions are and how far you can take them. If IE6 and non-Javascript are big factors in your audience, then this is likely to be limited. Nevertheless, if you are happy that these users get a not very beautiful, but still useful experience, then continue!