HTML5

HTML5 is a language for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web, a core technology of the Internet. It is the latest revision of theHTML standard (originally created in 1990) and currently remains under development. Its core aims have been to improve the language with support for the latest multimedia while keeping it easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices (web browsers, parsers etc.).

Following its immediate predecessors HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1, HTML5 is a response to the observation that the HTML and XHTML in common use on the World Wide Web is a mixture of features introduced by various specifications, along with those introduced by software products such as web browsers, those established by common practice, and the many syntax errors in existing web documents. It is also an attempt to define a singlemarkup language that can be written in either HTML or XHTML syntax. It includes detailed processing models to encourage more interoperable implementations; it extends, improves and rationalises the markup available for documents, and introduces markup and APIs for complex web applications.^[1]

In particular, HTML5 adds many new syntactical features. These include the <video>, <audio>, and <canvas> elements, as well as the integration of SVG content. These features are designed to make it easy to include and handle multimedia and graphical content on the web without having to resort to proprietary plugins and APIs. Other new elements, such as <section>, <article>, <header>, and <nav>, are designed to enrich thesemantic content of documents. New attributes have been introduced for the same purpose, while some elements and attributes have been removed. Some elements, such as <a>, <cite> and <menu> have been changed, redefined or standardised. The APIs and DOM are no longer afterthoughts, but are fundamental parts of the HTML5 specification.^[1] HTML5 also defines in some detail the required processing for invalid documents, so that syntax errors will be treated uniformly by all conforming browsers and other user agents.^[2]

The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) began work on the new standard in 2004, when the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was focusing future developments on XHTML 2.0, and HTML 4.01 had not been updated since 2000.^[3] In 2009, the W3C allowed the XHTML 2.0 Working Group's charter to expire, and decided not to renew it. W3C and WHATWG are currently working together on the development of HTML5.^[4]

Even though HTML5 has been well-known among web developers for years, it became the topic of mainstream media in April 2010^[5][6][7][8] after Apple Inc's CEO Steve Jobs issued a public letter titled "Thoughts on Flash" where he concludes that with the development of HTML5, Adobe Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content.^[9] This sparked a debate in web development circles where some suggested that while HTML5 provides enhanced functionality developers must consider the varying browser support of the different parts of the standard as well as otherfunctionality differences between HTML5 and Flash.^[10]