HTML5 is going to change the web as we know it.
So , what is HTML5? Whats different from the present version of HTML? Why should developers develop with it?
If you would like to watch and learn, check out . Its an hour long but it gets the message across. I especially like the part with a really complex animation done using pure Javascript thanks the canvas feature. There are obvious similarities with flash, but there are also some intrinsic differences. Both flash and HTML5 can serve dynamic content like animation ( and flash will still do animation much better than HTML5). But with flash, you are locked in to the adobe universe and its proprietary formats. But HTML5 is still HTML. The open source community is already exploiting its great features and coming up with great frameworks (like Sproutcore, 52framework). You dont even need any development environment like flash to develop in. A text editor is all you need really.
The real compelling thing about HTML5 is that, with HTML5, the web is not web as we know it. A web-app is almost same as a desktop app. You do not just go on a website, and wait after each click. Ideally, there should be as much functionality as possible within a single web page. Think of google docs, thing of google calendar, these behave quite differently from traditional websites.
This is where the cloud comes in. When webapps have functionality similar to the desktop, the desktop becomes obsolete for all its worth. You want to edit documents, do it on some cloud app like google docs. You want to chat, play, listen to music .. all these apps can be hosted in the cloud, they do not need to exist on your local machine.
Suddenly, your web browser is not just a “browser”, its an integral part of the OS itself. And thats when the rationale of Chrome OS started making sense to me. Google is being pretty foresighted about this and once again grabbing an entirely new market segment which it has helped create in a way.
Hmm..so it might not be long before all I need is a small and sleek gadget ( ipad style maybe) and not a bulky laptop with loads of ram, storage, power hungry processors etc. Because all you would really need is the cloud!
For complete list of differences between HTML5 and HTML4, check this out.