Why is HTML Suddenly Interesting? | Hacker News Reader

Why is HTML Suddenly Interesting?

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HTML and the whole dynamic web-app thing became interesting once a major party deployed a wide-spread application that used asynchronous updates.

Wait, let's go back a little.

HTML became interesting once Microsoft implemented an ActiveX XMLHTTPRequest object to enable a web-based Outlook client.

It became a stable development target once Microsoft disbanded the IE development team ('we've won the browser war so let's add some features to Word instead') and other browsers (primarily the Mozilla XUL/Gecko-based Firefox) took this de-facto standard and provided a viable alternative to IE with a more-or-less API compatible XMLHTTPRequest object.

That IE6 is still the industry standard is a thorn in the eye of many developers (including yours truly), but it has presented Microsoft with enough inertia that they now can no longer dictate how the next generation of browsers is going to behave.

Because "HTML 5" has very little to do with "HTML" the markup language. Most of the interesting features are accessed via JavaScript APIs, not markup.

So my gut feeling to stay with HTML 4.01 and use the new cool javascript features is perfectly sane?

Short answer: HTML 5 and fast Javascript engines.

Why asynchronous file upload still a pain?

tl;dr version: because html5 is coming and MS can't ruin it for everyone this time.

I agree and have been getting acquainted with HTML5; I advise everyone else to.

What does tl;dr mean? I've seen it a few times here and wondered about it.

too long; didn't read

That's the literal meaning. Subtexts include: this is way too verbose for the information it's delivering, this is way too editorialised, this needs editing, etc. So "tl;dr" is also a judgement of the resource referred to.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Tl%3Bdr#Chapter_1

Thanks.

http://www.google.com/search?q=tl+dr

Or rather, http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tl%3Bdr%22

More specifically, a summary of a longish text: item 2 from http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/TLDR

Note that this actually originates from the SomethingAwful Forums.

"MS can't ruin it for everyone this time."

I think you underestimate them.

I was ignoring html 5 until a few days ago and... I admit that so far its pretty cool. The canvas tag is very impressive, for example.

Yeah, exactly. I started coding HTML in 1999 and soon moved to JavaScript and DHTML which quickly got forgotten until lately the AJAX wave started. My love affair with Flash was only a very short one. My hope in SVG never materialized. Before that HTML was dull and outdated. We still use only 5 fonts for web copy etc. and it's already ten years later.

The Microsoft monopoly has killed progress.

Seeing Apple blocking Opera from the iPhone and another behemoth, Google being the main contender I don't see a much better "mobile" future. The market will soon "consolidate" and another monopoly will make HTML dull again.

We need a really free web with really free software. I don't think the "mobile" one will be it. Maybe the "Internet of things" will be the one that frees us from the shackles of stifling monopolist corporate rule.

I think there's a bit of pessimism in your comment, specifically in regard to Apple/Opera and ignoring the strengths of Webkit. In fact, I believe the iPhone already supports some HTML 5 standards.

However I can't say I blame your negativity given the bad taste MS left in everyone's mouth.

Apple and Google both use the WebKit rendering engine for their desktop and mobile browsers. WebKit is free software, and probably the most advanced in terms of HTML5 support. I don't understand where your fear of monopoly and stagnation comes from in light of that.

That's a funny rant considering that Opera is closed source and WebKit is opensource.

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