

Ask HN: Customer requires HTML 5, what do I say to convince otherwise - ForFreedom

A client of mine has requested HTML 5 to be used for their new website.  I suggested to go for the normal HTML since they have &quot;only&quot; static pages.<p>What bottom line should I use to convince them to use the normal HTML?
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ZeroGravitas
Is this a joke?

If not, HTML5 _is_ normal HTML, not even a requirement to support IE8 will
stop you using HTML5, though individual things in the various standards have
different levels of support, and not all fallback gracefully or have polyfills
available.

There's some starter kits that you can use that will provide the basics of an
HTML5 site, like
[https://html5boilerplate.com/](https://html5boilerplate.com/) or Bootstrap.

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NewsReader42
If you're not willing to learn or be adaptive to your customer' needs then you
have no place creating websites as a profession

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ForFreedom
Its not me doing a HTML5 but does the website require is more of a question.

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detaro
Using HTML5 or not makes no real difference for simple pages, so why wouldn't
you do it? As far as I know it doesn't really have downsides.

If they mean something more than just HTML5, figure out what exactly they mean
and decide about that.

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sidcool
You can go ahead and use HTML 5 compliant markup. As these are static
websites, you won't need any Canvas or other advanced stuff.

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ForFreedom
This is a max 10 page static website, no db etc.

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iraldir
Why do they mean by HTML5? Semantic markup? CSS3 Animations? Audio or video
maybe? Or did they just hear the buzzword and find it cool? It's your job to
explain them what it is and what it implies. But technically just using the
correct doctype means you are doing HTML5...

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ForFreedom
Their requirement is a static webpage and to have HTML5 ("As they say") on a
static page? There is no media and/or animations etc

