HTML 5 and Javascript's Role?

Question

Anyone clear on how big a role Javascript will play when HTML 5 comes around? I'm deciding now whether to purchase a book on Javascript DOM or learn something useful like cooking with hemp oil. I'm already weary of the past year and a half I've spent absorbing AS3. I love it, I just don't want to be outmoded in 5 years when the iRevolutionaires rule the intergalactic space agency.

-Jascha

Answer 1

HTML is about content, and not behavior -- which means you'll still have, even with HTML 5, to know at least :

• HTML, for the content
• CSS, for the presentation
• And Javascript for the behavior (dynamic stuff)

So, I don't think Javascript will be outmoded in the next couple of years -- on the contrary, I would say, considering we are more and more going to use/develop web-applications.

Answer 2

HTML 5 will be about content, as HTML always has (or should have) been about.

JavaScript has always been about behaviour. If you want behaviour, learn JavaScript.

Answer 3

If HTML5 is a Flash killer than the following may suffice:

JavaScript === ActionScript && HTML5 === MXML

HTML5 is for content and layout, JavaScript is for interacting with the end-user. For instance, richer games are possible when using Canvas for display of graphics and JavaScript for interaction.

Answer 4

IMHO, Javascript will become even more important with HTML5. Knowing how to manipulate the DOM has always been important for interactive web apps, but now, in order to program a "canvas", to interact with the "clipboard", to manipulate an application "offline", to store/retrieve data from "localStorage", and to continue building Ajax-style interactivity, you'll need Javascript even more.

You'll also find that you can replace a lot of Flash/AS3 with HTML5/JS.

Don't write JS code where you don't have to though. Better animation, pseudo-class, and pseudo-element support in CSS lessens the amount of "styling" you'll need to write in JS.

Go buy a book (or two, or three).

Answer 5

They are mentioning javascript in the lastest working draft of the HTML5 specification. SVG, Canvas, et al... javascript is versatile with all of these.

But then again I'm told there is a lot of bio developments in Hemp from different consortiums. Though the consortiums are often ilegitimate, illegal, and/or not as public as the wc3. But, still, it gets more and more powerful, and unlikely to disappear.

On the basis that Javascript's versatility – with everything HTML5 and with being increasingly used beyond just the context of the browser – and Hemp being easier to pick up, I'd by the javascript book.