
The turning point that is HTML5; are you ready? - alexandros
http://www.amundsen.com/blog/archives/1051
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alttab
While not written in any sort of professional manner, this got me thinking.
What is the author really suggesting?

Data will be linked to other data, and the client based application will use
it?

This sounds a lot like a general-purpose REST(ish) client. For instance, data
comes back, with actions on that data tied to other URLs to request to. The
client application will decide how to present it (is web design dead at this
point?). This is interesting, as the client applications are literally data
consumers - and the application developers really data architects. Its
possible that there would be no web design, no HTML/CSS/Javascript, and
another hollistic, more expressive technology will take its place.

Having data linked to other data is nothing we can't produce with well-
designed web services today. Maybe there will be a JSON linked-data API
standard. I could be getting the technology wrong but the concept is the same.

I'm not really sure how we would get away from presentation-focused web
applications. The client would have to be fairly sophisticated to handle all
of the different types of data structures coming in - and 'client data-
browsers' would inevitably have different implementations (we'll still need
the user agent string, won't we?). Add on top of that every application or
'view' will look the same as no design is added to it. Sounds boring and the
masses probably won't catch on. I'm definitely missing something here, but the
concept is fun to push around. Imagine how much larger/better/more
sophisticated/faster our web applications would be if you only had to worry
about data instead of also interface and state?

It doesn't really matter what comes - the mavericks and those willing to
change (and not just progress) will jump on, and everyone else will be an
outdated developer of yester-year. The concept is only scary to the lazy.

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jasonlbaptiste
Don't talk to me in terms of features, talk to me in terms of benefits. Why
would whatever this guy is suggesting benefit anyone ie- the normal person?

Sure HTML5 has some cool features (offline, canvas, location,etc.), but the
benefit is simple: get fast beautiful desktop class applications inside of
your browser so that you can use them anywhere without any IT headaches.

~~~
tjpick
> get fast beautiful desktop class applications inside of your browser so that
> you can use them anywhere without any IT headaches.

it must be lovely to live with such strong self-delusion.

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nl
_the future is not rendering and linking documents on the Web. the future is
rendering and linking data on the Web. and there is nothing here to make that
experience any better than it is today (which is lousy). in many ways, the
HTML5 effort makes it harder to build linked data applications since most will
need to continue to rely on heavily scripted Web apps. and "over-scripting" is
another sign that the common Web browser is an out-dated product._

Considering that the HTML5 effort was originally called "Web Applications 1.0"
I rather think he's missed the point.

HTML5 isn't (just) about rendering documents - it's a full application
development technology.

I don't find his statement that _"over-scripting" is another sign that the
common Web browser is an out-dated product_ particularly compelling - in fact
I don't even understand what it means.

~~~
amatriain
Well, I don't fully agree with this guy (I think I don't, actually I'm not
fully sure of where he's going). But I've also thought for some time that
user-side scripting in modern AJAX apps is getting ridiculous. If you look at
the javascript code generated for a GWT app, for instance, it's quite large
and hardly understandable.

I don't know, web app development sometimes feels a lot like trying to turn
screws with a hammer. HTML4 wasn't really designed to support dynamic
applications, yet we've made it work, more or less, by abusing and patching.
Nevertheless it was designed for static content, and it shows.

I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with HTML5 yet, so I don't know if it changes
this, but from what little I've read it doesn't seem so.

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daniel02216
I hope HTML5 includes a shift key for this guy.

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aaronbrethorst
I am so sick of seeing the turn of phrase "The <X> that is <Y>." Someone needs
to come up with a new cliched crutch for posts like this.

