Hey everyone, I'm new to web design and I am having fun so far -- I have been learning HTML5 and to me it seems like the friendliest version of HTML yet, but as I have been told, it has drawbacks. I was hoping to get input on what people thought of it and what the costs/benefits of using it are. To me it seems like HTML5: Is easier to write Is more relaxed in the syntax that can be used Is more SEO friendly Can implement styles / changes / modifications more easily (this may or may not be true) Drawbacks of it: Low IE compatibility / support... seems like Firefox/Chrome support it though ... ??? Thanks!
I fail to see how a superset adding endless pointless redundancies is somehow "easier" -- unless you were never introduced to logical document structure, semantic markup and separation of presentation from content, and instead were looking at the 1997 Style HTML 3.2 having 4 tranny slapped on top of it -- today most devs are still crapping out that idiotic half-assed code and slapping 5's lip service around it; Net improvement zero. It is NOT easier to write, BECAUSE of the redundancies, extra code for NOTHING, pointlessly confusing screwing up of what headings do, AND the relaxed syntax. There's this noodle-doodle idea floating around that having unclear/vague rules and relaxed syntax makes things EASIER... Because of course clear as mud vague code is so easy to work with. It offers NO legitimate SEO advantages despite the vague promises of things like the whole webschemas garbage -- with idiocy like the so called 'breadcrumbs' being nothing more than code bloat to make up for people being too stupid to realize that inside breadcrumbs the href on an achor might actually be the URL and the text inside that anchor might actually be the title... GOD FORBID. It's the type of idiocy the microformats whackjobs tried to promote six or seven years ago, and real world it's nothing more than the worst of micromanagement. In terms of actually writing markup, HTML 5 does more harm than good in terms of simplicity, structure, accessibility, etc, etc... Read the link in my siggy for my laundry list of complaints... that quite literally as I keep saying over and over, I cannot fathom how ANYONE is DUMB ENOUGH to see any advantages to using the train wreck of idiocy known as HTML 5 over 4 STRICT... unless of course said persons never understood 4 Strict, semantic markup, progressive enhancement, separation of presentation from content, logical document structure, navigable heading orders, etc, etc. It has to be the worst "specification" we've seen since HTML 3.2, undoes ALL the progress of the past decade and a half, and I hesitate to even call it a specification, particularly with WhatWG's BS proposal to lose versioning alltogether and go for the whole 'living document' hoodoo-voodoo... But I come from an engineering background where a specification is supposed to be an authoritative document, NOT a documentative one.
Wow... I wish I had a dummies' guide to what you just said. Being that I have only experienced HTML5 I can't know for certain all the details that you say make the difference. I chose HTML5 because I wanted to be future-ready... but I'm not sure at this point. Is it that big of a difference?
Well, if it's the future, then the future is 1997. It shares so much in common with what led to the creation of HTML 3.2 -- which is PRECISELY what HTML 4 STRICT was made to undo (and then the 4 transitional garbage gave all the idiots a crutch)... Which is why I fully expect when/if there's a HTML 6 it will deprecate almost everything added in HTML 5. Again, 5 is a superset -- it adds more tags for no reason to a perfectly good specification that was created to REMOVE redundancies. You've probably at least learned the syntax -- which is kindergarten level coding... tags are opened one way, closed another way, and have attributes -- ooh, hard. If you are working in a XHTML document (which I prefer) you have to know the difference between an empty tag and a normal tag (empty tags CANNOT contain content.. <div></div> is NOT an 'empty tag' by the specification) and learn how to close them (<br />, <hr />) - but if you're working in normal HTML you don't even need to know that. Then there's the difference between inline-level tags and block level. Block-level (DIV, P) can typically contain any other tag, while inline-level tags (A, SPAN, B, I, EM, STRONG) cannot contain block-level. HTML 5 tries to claim it's safe to lift this restriction, and increasingly this is proving to be 100% BS even in modern browsers. Then there's semantics -- using the tags for what they MEAN. This means using headings for headings, hr for topic changes where a heading is inappropriate, P for paragraphs, UL/OL for lists, TABLE around actually tabular data, etc, etc... The marking of sections with headings and horizontal rules is why SECTION and NAV serve no legitimate semantic purpose -- since you should be able to use heading navigation (which everyone except opera has spent a decade and a half dragging their heels on implementing) to get between 'sections' and past any navigation. Headings really are where most people screw up -- when it's simple... H1 is the heading under which all other topics/headings on the page are a SUBSECTION... this is why people have been saying for around ten years you should only have one H1, and why HTML 5's pissing on heading use is annoying at best, confusing at worst... H2's indicate the start of subsections of the H1, H3's are subsections of the H2's and so forth -- otherwise they wouldn't have numbers. Anyone who's ever written a engineering paper, scientific paper, or even a college level report should already know this. Most importantly is the semantics, saying what things ARE makes search engines jobs easier, improves accessibility in things like screen readers, and makes it easier to target multiple devices/layouts instead of the "For my size screen only" asshattery we get from the "draw a goofy picture in photoshop first" morons. Once you get the idea of semantics down, you'll end up looking at HTML 5 and going "WHY?!?!?" -- HTML 4 STRICT provides MORE than enough tags and attributes to do most anything you want to do on a website; particularly when it comes to semantics. The new allegedly semantic tags are just pointless redundancies, destroy logical document structure, and on the whole seems to be carefully crafted to satiate the needs of the ignorant twits who still crap out HTML 3.2 and up until recently were slapping a 4 Tranny on it -- now they get to slap 5's lip-service on it. It's why the method of development I advocate is to markup your content (or a reasonable facsimile) FIRST, bend that markup to the will adding as little extra elements for presentation to the markup as possible to make the layout with CSS, then and only then bringing in the PSD jockey to make the graphics that are hung on the layout. An alien concept to those who crap out one visual presentation, and when pressed go "WCAG, what's that?"
So would you recommend that I learn XHTML 1.0? Or HTML4; I am mainly learning web design to have another service that my business offers - so I would like to be able to craft functional, clean websites... nothing fancy. I just want to know that whatever I invest in learning will be around for years to come, as I'm not getting any younger!
I prefer XHTML 1.0 for it's cleaner stricter rules and consistency of markup; which are the 'legitimate' reasons to choose it. The XML-tards have their own noodle doodle reasons, none of which are based in reality with their nonsensical claims that serving it with the text/html mime-type makes it not be XHTML. (which is 100% bull since the specification saying what XHTML is says it's valid!)... but there's nothing 'wrong' with HTML 4 Strict either. They're really the same thing, the only difference being a few extra bits inside your HEAD and how empty tags are closed. ... and it's not like support for HTML 4 or XHTML is going anywhere -- sites written in HTML 2 still function in browsers because each new iteration is a superset of that before it, so all the old stuff will still WORK. More important is learning the semantics of the tags -- what they do, and what they are for. You get past that one mental hurdle and your golden... and it IS a mental hurdle because it means that when you write your HTML the default appearance of the tags should have nothing to do with why you are using it. That's a REALLY hard concept for a lot of people to grasp, even experienced developers have issues with it. Same way the people who draw pretty pictures in Photoshop before even having content of value and use tables for layout or fixed width design cannot grasp the simplest of layout concepts like Semi-fluid, elastic, mcSwitchy or Responsive layout. Which are far more the future of design than anything HTML 5 has to offer. Take a look at one of my sites: http://www.ewiusb.com/ Change the browser width getting narrower and you see 'responsive layout' in action... the whole layout adapts to the available space, eventually stripping away some presentation and columns. Change the system metric (default font size for your OS) -- all the fonts will adjust to match in browsers that pay attention to that, and the max-width will change to fit as well... no diving for the zoom for large font/120dpi or even larger setting users. Separation of presentation from content -- the semantic tags all say what things are, using semantically neutral tags (DIV, SPAN) as hooks for the presentation without saying what that presentation actually is...(Though I admittedly abuse B and I as sandbags because IE7 is a ***tard about generated content) I even have a hidden accesskeys menu for browsers that actually allow for it like Opera. (hit shift-esc in Opera to see this in action) as well as when CSS isn't loaded. Accessibility is the name of the game... because -- and this is a HARSH truth and very hard to swallow if you have even the slightest artistic tendencies (Which I do...) -- people visit websites for the CONTENT, not the goofy layout or graphics you hang around the content, which is why the graphics should be last and why accessibility to make it useful to as many people as possible should remain the #1 focus. After all, that's why Tim Berners-Lee came up with HTML in the first place.
Found this on the site "Pain on web development forums", not really, you're the most active and sane member in this section at least.
Deathshadow, just a heads up, when i clicked the link to deathshadow.com in the sidebar on your site http://www.ewiusb.com/ it redirected me to badmintonscreensaver.com/ehai.html?h=1260455 and chrome showed me a malware alert. Mal
Looks like my host got hacked... man I miss self hosting... NEVER had these problems when self hosting.
You really should host at HostGator, if you are looking for the most secured public US webhost for your sites.
Thing is I used to do all my stuff on my own dedicated, but my finances are running very VERY short lately so I'm at the whims of others... and I HATE being at the whims of others; I can't even stand VPS... I miss my old dedicated. Just gimme a flat install of debian and let me micro-manage the rest. No stupid malfing 'panels', no stupid malfing layer upon layer of idiotic garbage like varnish... just a raw flat OS install with just what I need on it. But then this has been the story of me on shared hosting/VPS every single time... I either get booted for too much system use, or I get pwned every few months because of some crap running on someone else's site. (and no suPHP is NOT the answer -- that's shooting your dog because the neighbor's cat has fleas) NOT a fan of hostgator -- had several bad experiences with them several years ago before I had a dedicated... Gonna review the $$$ today and see if I can afford a dedicated again... I'm sick of this.
Let me tell you one thing that nothing is perfect technology. You need to choose technology that provides more merits than drawbacks. As I know, HTML5 is far superior than other versions.
with HTML5 you can have various new tags that is actually useful and make life easier. such as <audio>, input type color, input type date etc... which is pain to do in HTML4 which will involve javascript. But still this is not really usable yet in real life situation. at least not until IE8 and below is wiped out from this face of the earth .
Relying on scripting doesn't help when scripting is blocked -- like at corporations who block it due to the vulnerabilities of IE but are stuck on IE due to in-house crapplets that rely on older versions. It's also code bloat since the loader has to be sent to everything -- AND FOR WHAT? A bunch of stupid goofy new tags that serve no legitimate purpose, particularly if you are already practicing separation of presentation from content and semantic markup? Of course that anyone considers those new tags "easier" is just mind blowing to me... particularly the ones that are useless without scripting in which case why are they in the markup specification? Or the ones that have fractured media delivery back to the worst of the late 90's format wars and are inherently redundant to OBJECT -- specifically AUDIO and VIDEO -- which are the poster children for HTML 5 undoing all the progress STRICT gave us.
Generally yes, doesn't work because Apple want to be total dicks and lock you into "their way or the highway" *** em. Though really what SHOULD have happened is everything you can do with Video and Audio should have been applied TO object... but no, that extra IF statement to figure out how to use it was too hard for browser makers... Personally, it pisses me off delivering audio or video being expected to deploy in anywhere from three to six different container/codec combinations when the industry was FINALLY settling on a standard. It sucked when it was Windows Media vs. QuickTime vs. Realplayer, (funny the winner from that one was what was an "also ran" during said wars) why in the blue blazes are people lining up like lemmings for a repeat of that?!? Herpafreakingderp! Welcome to the WORST of NINTEEEN {nasty string of expletives that would make a USMC DI blush} NINETY-SEVEN! Call it what it really is, a way for the browser makers to pimp their favorite pet codecs and containers, while gratifying the nutball FLOSS whackjobs who actually think OGG is worth a flying purple fish AND creating a new way to trick us into vendor lock-in. BRILLIANT. But what can one expect from a specification made by the people making browsers instead of the people making websites. -- edit -- Side note, NOT a big fan of audio delivery on websites -- it's either how do I shut this thing up or just lemme download the blasted thing... or in the case of garbage like podcasts "anybody got a transcript?"