Having been recently re-inspired to delve properly into the world of HTML5
I write this as a commitment to producing a number of useful things over the
next two weeks. And I will read all of Jeremy Keith’s books. And I will make
sure all of my sites validate, even the ones I did in a hurry. And I will
rebuild my portfolio with HTML5, and for mobile.
Not a promise. In all likelihood, tomorrow, I will spend several hours at Weirfield Wildlife Hospital cleaning up excretions of sick animals and loving every minute of it; followed by an afternoon and evening spent playing Mum to a certain parrot and consequently failing to do anything else.
It was sad indeed. Plus the hoard of ducklings is now down to seven. (There
were nine, last time I was in, and they started at ten). Apparently they can
die from being too wet. Who knew.
I also encountered this morning: a pigeon who held his head upside down and
walked in circles. He had issues. And a flightless canary, who seems healthy
in all other aspects. Maybe he’s just awkward. But because of this, it
doesn’t look like he’s fit for the outside aviary. If I didn’t think Tigo
would eat him, I’d adopt him in a second.
Speaking of Tigo, he seems to be exhibiting nesting behaviour:
[images]
I think he might be hormonal. It would certainly explain the sudden increase
in biting.
PS. Yesterday’s prophecy came true. Quelle surprise.
[A summary of things I feel about HTML5, from a sleep-deprived mind]
It feels like it should be much later... earlier... than that. I’ve spent
hours and hours reading debates about HTML5. Mostly debates in the comments
of blog posts and articles. I feel fairly well versed in two sides of the
argument, the nature of which boils down to “HTML5: What is the point?⁂.
My personal view is that progression is good. Development for the sake of
development is good. Even if you don’t get it right the first time, at least
you’re doing something, and not just whining about it. Someone (yeah, someone
important, I don’t do citations at this time in the morning) said that HTML5
was being developed for the present, and that it will be rewritten in the
future, to meet the needs in the future. Lots of people had a problem with
that concept, as we should be developing for the future. Lots of people
supported that concept, as predicting the future is quite a challenge. I
haven’t decided where I stand yet. Maybe I don’t need to.
I like the fact things are changing, because it makes me feel excited and
challenged and all that. It upsets me a little that I’d just got the hang of
all this web development malarky, and now there’s more?! Lots of people seem
to feel the same about the latter. Which is understandable. Understandable
in a world where the web is expected to be a fixed thing, and you make a
website, and it works, and customers are happy, and clients are happy, and it
stays like that forever. But the world and the web (and customers and
clients) are fluid and flowing and flexible and fickle. Peoples’ needs
change, hardware changes, software changes, businesses change. They always
have, and always will, so where this idea that the web should whoa slow down a
second and wait for the slower ones to catch up has come from, I’m not quite
sure.
This makes it sound like HTML5 appeared overnight. Which for me, in a way, it
did. Appeared to my conscious, concentrating, information-absorbing mind,
anyway.
But the part where the HTML5 spec has been under development for like six
years or something now? Come on guys. I know it’s not easy, but really.
Give the lazy people something to complain about. Or at least make a big deal
out of it from the start. So ‘they’ can start thinking about it from the get-
go. Maybe a big deal was made, and I just missed it. But I was making
websites six years ago, just. So if I missed it, ‘they’ did too.
That last paragraph went a bit to the dogs. What I’m trying to say is: the
little man on the ground, the guy making the websites day-to-day, the guy
dabbling, the guy fouling up the standard mark-up you hold so dear... Tell him
what you’re doing, as you’re doing it, so he’s prepared.
I know you can’t force change. Hell, outside of term time I still live under
a regime where IE6 is deemed a perfectly adequate browser, installing Chrome
‘breaks’ IE, so isn’t allowed, and [insert new web thing since 1997] might be
a great feature, but since my father doesn’t explicitly use it, any
development on that front is pointless. Hey, he even (almost daily) states
angrily that film making companies are at fault because their productions are
shown letterboxed on his 4:3 TV. (I just searched so I could state that
widescreen TVs have been commonplace since [year], and discovered that films
have been being made in widescreen since around 1929. HAH. I’ll quote that
juicy fact next time). But this is whole other blog post.
I was going somewhere with this. Oh yes.
I still don’t know whether I can put a
That’s all I was trying to find out when I stumbled across the various
debates.
I’m officially declaring the HTML5 spec subject to interpretation.
And I’m putting the
PS. Thanks for the great work on developing HTML5, guys. My life would be
dull and repetitive without the likes of you; I’d be reading and writing a lot
more fiction, and spending far more time with my family. Much obliged.
