
The Most Important Parts of HTML5 - falava
http://blog.n01se.net/blog-n01se-net-p-375.html
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uptown
1\. Faster Javascript Engines

2\. WebSockets

3\. Binary Data Types (Typed Arrays and Blobs)

4\. Web Audio API

5\. Canvas 2D Context

6\. CSS3 and WOFF

7\. Local Storage, Offline Applications and the File APIs

8\. Web Workers

9\. SVG 1.1/2.0

10\. WebGL

11\. All the Rest

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kevingadd
A second-system replacement for the <audio> tag is more important than being
able to render graphics or store data locally? Questionable ranking.

Decent summary of important stuff in/related to HTML5, though.

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masklinn
> A second-system replacement for the <audio> tag

I don't believe it's intended as a replacement for the <audio> tag. The audio
tag exists to embed (pre-existing) recordings and their metadata (e.g.
transcripts). The purpose of the audio API is generated sounds (music
sequencer & the like) and low-latency sounds (for video games).

While you could probably re-implement <audio> on top of the web audio API,
that's not very useful.

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rizla
Is there a no noise version of this. Trying to read it on mobile device is
near impossible (hangover and screaming kid - unrelated - not helping)

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kasbah
Try Readability: <http://www.readability.com/articles/3y6tgqfb>

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rizla
Cheers

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kevincennis
I'm always really surprised when I read posts like these and they don't
mention Web Components/Shadow DOM.

The ability to encapsulate markup, style, and behavior into a single unit with
a clean API is an enormous improvement. Of all the new HTML5 features, I think
Web Components have the highest potential to relieve a huge pain point for
developers.

Image an online repository with all kinds of widgets -- range sliders, date-
pickers, sortable lists, etc. But instead of a collections of inconsistent
jQuery plugins with CSS dependencies, you get a single, self-contained module
that can be interacted with as if it were a native DOM node.

~~~
masklinn
> But instead of a collections of inconsistent jQuery plugins with CSS
> dependencies

You get a collection of inconsistent web components?

> you get a single, self-contained module that can be interacted with as if it
> were a native DOM node.

Right, because the one thing I always think when I'm using third-party code is
"I'd like this thing to be way more opaque, I'd like to have way less control
over it, and I definitely don't want to be able to introspect it."

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Liongadev
So lets compare the most important features that HTML5 might bring to what
flash offers:

1\. Faster Javascript Engines

AS3 in Flash Player 9 (2006) has about the same speed Javascript has now.
There are about as many benchmarks showing AS3 beeing faster, then there are
the ones showing Javascript beeing faster. Speed seems to be about the same

2\. WebSockets

Has been in Flash since 2006

3\. Binary Data Types (Typed Arrays and Blobs)

Has been in Flash since 2006

4\. Web Audio API

Has been in Flash way longer

5\. Canvas 2D Context

Has been in Flash since like forever ago

6\. CSS3 and WOFF

Nothing really specific but Flash has most all of that since years

7\. Local Storage, Offline Applications and the File APIs

Since 2006/2008

8\. Web Workers

Will come with Flash 11.4 soon.

9\. SVG 1.1/2.0

Vectors are at the core of Flash

10\. WebGL

Stage3D is in Flash since 2011

So just stop hatin Flash and love the browser independent possibilities.

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erichocean
11\. A multi-vendor international standard.

In Flash since...never.

12\. Runs great on iOS and Android.

In Flash since...never.

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_delirium
#11 could've turned out differently I think, but Adobe dragged their feet too
long. They dropped any licensing restrictions on third-party implementations
in 2009 along with releasing full specs for the format. After that happened,
even woefully underfunded/understaffed projects like GNU Gnash actually made
pretty good progress on implementing it. If they had dropped the restrictions
earlier and someone with more funding than Gnash (like Apple) had wanted to
build a third-party implementation of the spec directly in the browser (rather
than as a plugin), I think it would've been possible.

On the other hand, it's possible HTML5 is better thought out technically. I
don't have a strong opinion on that. I do think the Adobe approach of "rich
internet applications", which was once shunned by the HTML/hypertext
community, is winning after all, just not in Adobe's format.

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stesch
Apropos WebGL: Why are web browsers so picky regarding WebGL? There are PCs
out there which are perfectly fine running applications like Blender (uses
OpenGL for the GUI and everything) but Firefox won't let you use WebGL on it.

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azakai
Web browsers have a much higher standard of quality here. It's ok if a local
app like Blender uses an OpenGL driver that has security exploits - it's a
local app and almost always running trusted content. It's also not so bad if
Blender crashes rarely due to a buggy GL driver or has rendering glitches
because of it.

In a web browser though, you need to be sure of security - you are running
arbitrary content from the web - as well as stability and consistency. So
WebGL-powered browsers blacklist drivers known to be problematic.

You can override the blacklists if you dare, but it is very dangerous.

~~~
stesch
This makes WebGL in itself very dangerous, because you have to rely on
blacklists/whitelists instead of real security measures.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Shameless plug, for more info on WebSocket, here's a brief intro:

<http://websocket.us/>

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level09
change the background ..

