“Since the last year with all the hype around HTML5 and the buzz about ‘how HTML5 is going to save the web’ and that ‘Flash is dead’, etc., a lot of people started to believe that HTML5 is ready for production and that it is more stable and has a better performance than Flash… Since the beginning I’ve been saying to everyone that it isn’t true and it won’t be for a long time.”
Thanks Thom, enjoyed reading the article, and even more
reading the comments from the various besserwisser that, noo… you must be mistaken, I have no problems/bugs with HTMl5, HTML5 *is* just better.
Complaining about HTML5 now doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The standard isn’t finished, we are speaking about drafts and many browsers don’t implement every piece yet, because the developers are afraid that they would have ti implement it multiple times. Websockets or push-technologies in general are a great example.
It doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to complain about stuff like performance of an unfinished (I mean nowhere near) implementation when there isn’t even a finished standard for most HTML 5 parts.
I still think it’s a good thing to criticize a standard before there is a final version, so it can be changed. That’s also why browsers should implement unfinished stuff, even if it is going to change. Feedback of people implementing this stuff is usually very welcome. As long as it isn’t about using patented formats.
There is still a competition about the fastest JavaScript implementation and therefor I believe JavaScript or canvas will stay that slow.
Who care about iPads anyway? :p
Not that it is just one way to access the internet and if it is that successful I bet there will be a new version. Else web developers will at some point (when HTML5 is finished) be able to drop it. Like they dropped IE5.
“Complaining about HTML5 now doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The standard isn’t finished”
On the contrary. That is why we can complain about it. Big standards are always slow, complicated, and hard to get agreement. Thus they always lag behind the nimble products that might not be as ‘standard’ but are designed to get things done.
Ultimately, HTML will face the same problem as Java. HTML (not just HTML, but AJAX…) is trying to become a universal programming API. It stopped being a markup language long ago.
Edited 2011-02-04 14:05 UTC
If big standards are slow and complex then maybe it should be broken into smaller projects and allow those components that are non-controversial to move forward whilst spending time addressing the ones that are a little more controversial. Having a large ‘umbrella’ standard such as HTML5 is all very well and good but keeping in mind the better way of addressing such a complex issue is to take a piece meal approach so that each group can advance forward at its own pace as not to hold up development over all.
I also have an issue with the fact that W3C is chocked to the brim with vendors who aren’t even making web browsers or anything related to the internet; sorry, why should an organisation who has no vested interest, other than protecting their monopoly/market dominance in a particular area, hold up the development of a standard by fillabusting any sort of development forward.
Take a look at this list:
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
And I’d love someone to explain to me why even half those people are at the discussion table – clingers on, hangers on and oxygen thieves who quite frankly contribute nothing; most of them don’t make browsers, development tools or platforms so why the hell are they even there?
This is why HTML is now going to become a rolling standard ..
http://blog.whatwg.org/html-is-the-new-html5
The linked article is not complaining about HTML5, itself.
It’s complaining that HTML5 is in beta state, but Apple and Microsoft are touting it has the way to go, even though they know it is incomplete, and their own implementations are buggy and incomplete and inconsistent as hell.
Contrary to commenters on the blog post, I do not think that it was “really well written” or a “delightful reading”. Too many grammar mistakes; they even clouded the meaning of the sentences.
As to the topic, I think the iPad is not worth the talk about it. Not revolutionary enough. For HTML5, too hyped too, although it’ll probably have the merit of truly opening the web to all platforms.
What really got me was this line –
I’m saying that the iPad is the new IE6 because we are expecting it to be something that it isn’t, the same way that we were expecting that IE6 would have the same features/performance/reliability than the latest versions of Firefox/Safari.
Firefox and Safari didn’t exist when IE6 released. How could you expect IE 6 to have the same features/performance/reliability of browsers that followed several years after it’s release? It’s been so long I can’t remember how it stacked up to Netscape Navigator and Konqueror.
Fairly well, actually, which partially explains it’s longevity – it was good enough for people to build their first-generation web apps on (the one’s we’re still having to support today).
Konqueror back then was pretty crude – it worked, but a lot of sites would choke on it, particularly if they did anything fancy. Netscape 6 wasn’t bad (although offering little over the Mozilla browser it was based on), but certainly didn’t offer any compelling reason for people to use it instead of IE.
I wrote here on OSnews on this topic a year ago: http://www.osnews.com/story/23378/Will_Apple_Embrace_the_Web_No_ My conclusion was very similar, that Safari would be the next IE6 (not the iPad, specifically)
That said, the author has clearly not tried using HTML5 video on Android. It’s twice as broken.
The problem is not Android, or iPad, it’s the “ship it now and fix it later” mentality that’s become prevalent.
actually i dont think the ship it now fix later is that bad or actually bad at all…
its the mentality of ” ship it now , we can fix it later but wont because he will have a new product for you to buy instead “
I agree a bit with each of you. In my opinion, the way it should be done is
-Fix as much bugs as possible on it now, ship it later
-Be very quick to find any flaw discovered after it started shipping, and make the fix available to everyone.
I really don’t like having to download gigabytes of patches right after I installed an OS because of the “ship it now fix it later” mentality. But when devs do have screwed up, releasing the fix to everyone is a bare minimum.
Edited 2011-02-04 16:13 UTC
Welcome to the disposable operating system.
Since the late 90s this has been true. Indeed, I have had the same rolling install since 2005, thanks
Just update to the next version and never care about the old one…
Like the one behind Flash’s sudden reduction in “efficiency” some time before last summer forcing many to upgrade their computers to keep enjoying fullscreen/higher resolution video.
So there’s SFA in the way of simple “end user” software tools that produce decent results or hardware devices (you know, like camcorders) out there that support WebM, and in every comparison test (I’ve seen) between WebM and H.264, WebM gets slapped around the head, but we’re all supposed to embrace and support WebM because it’s “open” (the definition of which seems itself to be a topic of debate anyway), but then we’re supposed to knock the shit out of the iPad because it’s promoting the use of an unencumbered technology that’s also not mature, instead preferring devices that poorly support a proprietary technology that’s owned and totally controlled by one company.
Oh wait, that’s right, one comes from Apple, the other from Google. Gotcha…
You’re not a very good troll.
It’s a quote. Read the damn blog. He’s bashing Steve Jobs for his HTML5 speech and HTML5 supporters by simple facts that HTML5 is not ready for real world use. And he’s bashing all iOS, Android, WebKit, IE, etc…
This has literally nothing about codecs, good job bringing something absolutely off topic.
Polly want a cracker?
Many of the WebM vs H.264 tests are done using source material which was already compressed with H.264 or a similar scheme, so recompressing it using the same scheme will achieve better results than a different scheme.
That said, at what point does openness trump inferiority?
The rise of x86 is a triumph of openness over superiority, there were all manner of proprietary hardware designs that were hugely superior to x86, and yet these superior designs have lost out over the years.
Imagine a world where say Alpha had won out over x86 because in the early to mid 90s it was massively superior. Had that happened, everyone would need to buy their hardware from DEC, who could charge pretty much what they liked and develop incremental improvements at their own pace (ie slowly so as to maximize profits), so instead of the rapid improvements in performance we have today, it’s likely we would be 10 years behind where we are now, while DEC would be rolling around in billions of dollars.
A couple of thoughts.
HTML5 works a whole lot better than Flash does on an iPad
The iPad has not yet been out a year – it’s early days. I know that for some Apple phobia runs deep but attacking HTML5 as a way to attack Apple is just trying to cut your nose off to spite your face.
And pro Apple supporters see Apple bashing, when the person is bashing everyone for implementing half baked standard and presenting it as the best thing ever for web developers. RTFA!
HTML5 on the iPad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4
Well, you’re right inasmuch as flash doesn’t run at all on the iPad…
I think comparing flash vs IE6 is a bit disingenuous for a couple of reasons:
– IE6 was the ‘de facto’ standard for like 10 years, because MS didn’t bother to update it. I think it’s safe to say the Safari on iOS will be updated a little more than that
– IE6 had a bunch of proprietary crap in it, just like flash. In this case, instead of going from open to closed (as with IE6), we are attempting to go the other way around with HTML5
Personally, I consider the lack of flash on iOS to be a feature. I have an Android phone that is capable of running flash, and I have gone out of my way NOT to install it. And this isn’t for political reasons, but more about security and performance concerns.
Honestly, flash is something we need to get away from. And if you can’t pull off something in HTML5 that you could in flash, just step back and ask yourself if you REALLY need to? Because 99.5% of the time, flash is being used in places that it’s really not needed. IMHO, we could do with a lot less flashing/animating crap and more quality content. Hell, I was writing websites in the mid-90’s that were getting hundreds of hits per day (back when there weren’t a lot of users online), and we didn’t even have tables back then. And I never got any complaints that my sites weren’t ‘pretty’ enough. You know why? Because people weren’t dumb enough to bitch about things like that back then.
I can still remember when frames were first introduced, and me and a buddy (who was my partner) were trying to decide if we wanted to use them, and ultimately decided against it, as we didn’t feel it was worth the compatibility issues with older browsers, and figured we could get by without them. These days, people will use all the newest tech because they CAN, not because they SHOULD.
So, I think there is more than enough technology available to web devs at the moment, so why not focus less on technology and more on content? If you’re trying to use ‘flash’ (both figuratively and literally) in order to compensate for the lack of substance on your site, you should probably give it up.
Edited 2011-02-04 15:56 UTC
Kind of reminds me of a website (which I can’t find) that talked about the inverse relationship of the number of PowerPoint animations v. actual content in the slides.
The whole reason we have the dizzying array of animations and sound effects etc. in PowerPoint is to distract bored audiences from the fact that the presenter has nothing useful to say.
The same is true with Flash in websites.
We’ve had this debate here before with out much progress. Its always devolved into this:
Person_1: HTML 5 is not a replacement for flash.
Person_2: Yes it is, everyone says it is.
Person_1: that doesn’t mean its true.
Person_2: Ok, what can flash do that HTML5 can’t ?
Person_1: DRM.
Person_2: Yea!!! What’s wrong with lack of DRM? Sounds good to me!
But this article briefly touched on real HTML 5 problems: seeking into videos, looping videos, javascript performance, multiple videos per page. I would, in the future enjoy more specific examples of the problems in HTML 5. Croc, I’m looking at you…
The video seeking has already been addressed by Apple with the Apple’s HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming:
http://developer.apple.com/resources/http-streaming/
Not the sexiest most elegant solution in the world but it achieves what one wishes with minimal fuss and bother. As for DRM you could always pipe it through SSL and store the cached version in the encrypted format as one possible solution. Another solution could be Sun Microsystems attempt at an open DRM solution called DReaM:
http://labs.oracle.com/spotlight/20050919_DReaM-Overview.html
Apple’s proprietary solution is no solution whatsoever.
Stop trolling, “oxygen thief”.
How is it remotely proprietary when it is fully documented? Oh, thats right yet another trololol from our good friend ‘TheGZeus’.
They are the only ones who use it. It’s not portable, thus it’s proprietary.
I’m (not) sorry if I offended your religious beliefs.
There is a lot of software that only runs on linux does it make it proprietary?
Actually, I *love* the lack of DRM. I’d prefer it not be included. I’m anti piracy *and* anti DRM. For a while in the beginning I did think drm was necessary, but then Microsoft “plays for sure” proved to me that was a terrible idea.
So am I anti-DRM and anti-piracy but one has to also realise it isn’t you or I who make decisions, it is middle aged old men whose only understanding of ‘that IT stuff’ is what consulting shills tell them.
That may or may not be true. In any case I can’t do anything differently. I certainly won’t let their decisions determine my preferences in technologies. I like HTML5. If using it goes against the wishes of media moguls, or men behind curtains in non Kansasian lands, then that much the better.
Indeed, many pirates are actually pro-DRM…
Why? well DRM makes casual copying more difficult, meaning that people are more likely to buy the copied discs being sold cheaply on street corners instead…
Also, if all legitimately purchased media has DRM while pirate copies do not, then the pirate copies will work better and provide more flexibility which gives them another selling point.
Does anyone else implement the HTTP Streaming from Apple?
Does anyone implement DReaM at all?
And the main point – you have to do it with HTML5 yourself while Flash is already there for content producers. That is an unfortunate fact along with HTML5 still not standardised.
FFMPEG
http://www.ffmpeg.org/changelog.html
LIBAVCODEC52 Trunk:
version[next]
– Apple HTTP Live Streaming demuxer
I never really understood this, but isn’t video just ONE thing that html5 is supposed to be able to do? How does the iPad do with other aspects of html5? The only other thing the article talked about was canvas performance being slow. What about other browsers?
Good article. PMSL at the cartoon too. FFFFFUUUUUU!
Personally, I love Flash – from slow-loading web pages that bog down the CPU and drain the battery to run annoying ads to corporate pages that just have to have irritating animations everywhere, it really hits the spot.
Maybe the problem isn’t Flash itself, it’s just that people use it.
Check your cpu usage when playing a HTML5 game. I played a 90’s looking platformer that used more cpu than doom 3.
HTML5 is not a godsend nor a replacement for Flash.
What game was that?
Biolab disaster, I assume. There are not much platformers written in HTML5 around currently.
Well, that game is indeed a monumental cpu hog, no matter what browser. Still, one game is not even close to be a big enough sample to base any conclusions on html5 performance on.
I’ve tried some other HTML5 games, it seems to be a recurring problem.
Flash games also seem to consume a lot of cpu.. The fact is, neither flash nor html5 are efficient platforms for gaming.
On the other hand, something simple like an animated banner in flash can quite often peg my machine to 100% cpu whereas a similar animated banner done in html or gif does not.
In Chrome I always install FlashBlock extension, which replaces flash element by a button, so you can click if you really want something to see. And it appears, that invisible flash is used often to spy for user, working around of browser filtering. I do not remember any single case, when I regret about missing flash on iPad. If iPad support Flash, I would setup personal filtering proxy.
No, you wouldn’t.
That would imply having extensions in your web browser or a packet sniffer, something which Apple will *never* let happen.
Yes, i can. All i need to do is to setup proxy on some machine and use it address as a proxy. Virtual servers are cheep these days.
Indeed, didn’t think about this possibility. Sounds a bit complex to set up though.
HTML5 is a draft standard that the W3C has stated is not ready.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/w3c_html5_not_ready_for_produc…
IE6 couldn’t display transparent pngs properly.
Anyone who claims (recent tech) is the new IE6 hasn’t spent much time with IE6.
First, harping on video is a bit silly as it’s a small part of HTML5, easily addressed with a minor software update once the debate settles, etc. JavaScript? Performance has improved and continues to improve with time. Sure, it’s not going to compete with your optimized C code anytime soon, but implementations are improving as is the hardware. Java didn’t start out as much of a performer either.
However, the article nimbly dances around the one thing that is really the important point: HTML5 aims to be a public standard and one that has buy-in by ALL the major players. It’s also pretty damned capable. IE6 was a problem because it performed poorly, diverged from published standards, ignored the conventional interpretation of the HTML box model, etc. — and the vendor explicitly intended it to never be fixed.
In the case of HTML5, the standard isn’t ratified and while most of it is agreed upon by interested parties, there’s still debate about parts (mostly the video tag, but also client-side data stores). However, just like HTML4 and CSS before it (and things like 802.11n), vendors are developing transitional implementations of the future standards — ones that have an amazing amount of compatibility; much better than we’ve seen before.
The criticism that HTML5 effectively marks the end of HTML as a mark-up language is somewhat inaccurate. Widespread adoption of JavaScript, and CSS for that matter, have long ago undermined the use of HTML solely as a text-lyaout markup language, but fundamentally, it is still about marking up a document — it’s just that a lot of the markup has nothing to do with the layout now.
According to this article:
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/HTML5-to-become-a-living-sta…
The HTML5 will be “rolling” standard, which will NEVER be ready. Modified on the go as needed.
Among all the comments here, there is one big difference here between HTML5 and former standards that seems to be missed: With HTML5, you know what a bug is. Before, the spec was not explicit enough, so what was a bug and what wasn’t was often a matter of speculation. One person’s “bug” was another person’s “feature”.
At least with HTML5 we can identify a bug.