html5 impact and questions

Question

I keep hearing about html5 and seen on other questions/answers on this site that the current browsers do not yet support it...what I know:

• it has potential to replace flash and silverlight
• Google seems to be building new systems to take advantage of it (is that correct?)

What I don't know (which is a lot, but will limit it to some points of interest):

• how will existing sites work within a html5 browser (backward compatible?)
• is Flash/Silerlight really gone? will they be supported? (I'm sure adobe will not be happy)
• is javascript impacted? improved? will jquery still work?
• is there a good site listing (high level down) what the html code impacts are?

Answer 1

Google seems to be building new systems to take advantage of it (is that correct?)

Correct

Google Bets Big on HTML 5: News from Google I/O

HTML5 and The Future of the Web

HTML 5 is a mess. Now what?

Answer 2

W3C has a working draft of the differences between HTML 4 and 5.

Answer 3

http://html5doctor.com/ is probably a good place to answer a lot of that.

Stop thinking about it as a new version. Think of it as just another step, building on what we have and introducing some new elements that let us do new stuff.

Read up on the new elements and what browser support they have, then start using them where they help you (remembering to use the right doctype).

Answer 4

Here's a great article/comic strip about html 5 and how it differs from xhtml. I found it very useful in explaining the differences.

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/29/misunderstanding-markup-xhtml-2-comic-strip/][1]

Answer 5

To answer just one question:

"is Flash/Silerlight really gone? will they be supported? (I'm sure adobe will not be happy)"

Yes, they will be supported, since HTML5 still has the OBJECT tag and this is what is used to embed external content (such as Flash etc).

Answer 6

For starters, it can work in older browsers. I've got it working in most major browsers in a reasonable span of versions: http://www.stevefenton.co.uk/

Flash and Silverlight will still be a part of the internet, but what they want to do is make it possible to have video content (for example) that doesn't need a plug-in to play it back. The idea is to pick a format that all browsers will support (this is more difficult than it sounds as the codecs might require licensing, or if they don't - might not be that good).

ALL browsers that support HTML5 will also display HTML4.01 and XHTML websites.

JavaScript and jQuery WILL continue to work.

Check out the http://www.w3.org/ website for the full specifications (in draft).