

HTML5 Peeks, Pokes and Pointers - pistoriusp
http://diveintohtml5.org/peeks-pokes-and-pointers.html

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mildweed
FYI: Article has nothing to do with memory pointers or linked list peeks, and
everything to do with DOM attributes of HTML5 elements and attributes.

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philwelch
Yes, my mind was blown for a second and then I was slightly disappointed.
("Poke" and "peek" are also commands to write to and read from a given memory
address, respectively.)

It's presumably a reference to old time tables of "peeks" and "pokes" showing
what each memory address controlled, or somesuch.

~~~
MarkPilgrim
Here's the story about the name: I wrote
<http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/01/29/tinkerers-sunset> earlier this
year, decrying the lack of "tinkerability" of the iPad and similar closed
devices. "There won't ever be a MacsBug for the iPad. There won't be a
ResEdit, or a Copy ][+ sector editor, or an iPad Peeks & Pokes Chart."

One of the common refrains in the comments was that the iPad includes top-of-
the-line support for a perfectly open, tinkerable platform: the web. Thus, the
"HTML5 Peeks, Pokes and Pointers" chart was born.

Also, I just purchased a real live physical original Beagle Bros "Peeks, Pokes
and Pointers" chart to hang up in my mancave^Woffice. Next to my Apple //es.
Plural. So there's that.

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olefoo
Fond memories of the Beagle Bros. poster that hung on the wall next to the
Apple ][ 's in my high school's computer lab.

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godDLL
Is this a chart of individual tests for "HTML5" feature support, so that you
could start using them today (providing graceful degradation)? Why, yes it is.

Does it say so anywhere on the chart? Let me check…

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philfreo
What I want to see is a drop-in JavaScript library that makes many of the new
HTML5 elements, attributes, etc. backwards-compatible with all common browsers
starting with IE6.

E.g., I want to say <input type="text" placeholder="What is your username?" />
and have a script that detects if the browser supports the placeholder
attributes, and if not, simulates it transparently.

I'd happily understand/accept if this script was limited, so long as it had
good clean documentation of what it supported (like placeholder).

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jsdalton
Modernizr (<http://www.modernizr.com/>) is as close as you're going to get at
the moment. It's pretty solid.

~~~
philfreo
This is actually specifically NOT want I want:

"Modernizr does not add missing functionality to browsers; instead, it detects
native availability of features and offers you a way to maintain a fine level
of control over your site regardless of a browser’s capabilities."

I understand that not all HTML5 features can be reproduced in JS, but for the
ones that can (such as "placeholder"), I don't want to have to think about
reimplementing it for older browsers when it could be done automatically.

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dstein
Everyone's so hyped up about HTML5. And yet I am slowly coming to the
realization that the W3C has made a very, very, grave error in not going ahead
with XHTML2.

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dstein
HTML5 basically takes HTML4 and adds 3 tags: audio, video, canvas. These solve
very specific issues, sound, movies, and drawing. HTML5 does not address some
larger scoped problems related to HTML -- the biggest being that HTML sucks.
It has always sucked, and it needs to go. It needs to be replaced with
flexible, programmable XML.

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rimantas
There is much more to HTML5 (or to HTML4 for that matter) than three
_elements_ (those are elements, not tags).

You can have your XML with XHTML or HTML5 XML serialization. Oh, but that does
not solve the "flexible" part, right? Well, you have to choose there — either
flexibility or interoparatibility. HTML5 focuses a lot on the latter.

What do you want? To have any arbitrary element in your markup? Ok, you get
your <foobar>barbaz</foobar>. And then what? What should it mean to everyone
else beside you? What do you gain by that?

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dstein
"What do you want? To have any arbitrary element in your markup? Ok, you get
your <foobar>barbaz</foobar>"

Yeah I want my own elements that do anything I want, and I'm working on a
solution to it. And this project is what led me to the conclusion that beyond
adding 3 tags HTML5 really doesn't address any of the bigger issues. I think
it's really silly how much hype HTML5 is receiving when it's a patch job at
best.

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rimantas
Well, the sooner you have your solution ready, the sooner you will understand
that you were solving the wrong problem.

By the way some of the new elements in HTML5 (and there are not three but
almost thirty new elements) are in fact supposed to save web developers from
the need to invent theri own way to express some common semantics in HTML,
e.g. section, artcile, nav, header, footer. There are alos a buch on new API,
much richer inputs collection for forms, etc.

