Normally the New Year is a time for people to make a series of resolutions that they'll promptly break by February 2nd. I have my own list of web related resolutions that I'll be putting up at some point at CSSquirrel, but today I'm actually setting out a New Year's dare for others to take to heart, involving everyone's favorite forgotten standard: HTML5.
The Leadup: HTML5 In Recent News
A lot of talk has been made about HTML5 in the past, with more recent commentary this past year being about whether it'd ever actually be ready to use. Ishtml5readyyet.com is probably the most succinct on that front, although Jeff Croft's blog post back in September on the subject was a nice touch on the subject (especially in the comment stream that followed), and prompted me to parody the topic in a CSSquirrel strip.
The catch is, of course, that the kerfuffle is actually over really poor terminology. The fact is, a standard getting "proposed recommendation" status means two browsers already are completely rendering the standard properly and interoperably. Which means to me that the W3G and anyone else using these terms need their heads checked, as recommending something that's already come to pass is like making prophetic statements about yesterday's lunch. Which I predict was a beef burrito.
The reality is that HTML5 is already coming into use, with several big names in the web design world putting their work where their mouths are and using the standard for some of their recent sites. Eric Meyer's coding for An Event Apart's new website is in HTML5 (he writes about the experience here), and Jeremy Keith's Huffduffer and the new UX London site are also both HTML5 (which he writes about here.)
Is HTML5 ready for being used for every website by every designer? Probably not. The spec's doubtlessly got a ways to go before it's solidified, and there's definitely gaps in implementation by browsers. But as cutting edge web designers, I don't think we should let details like that that stop us from getting our hands dirty and start some hands-on learning.
The Dare
So my dare to you all is as follows: Start digging into HTML5, start making websites with it, and write about the experience. Jeremy Keith has already recommended it, so if everything goes wrong let's just agree to blame him (and not me.) Still, I think it's a great idea. Sure, most client projects should probably stay in a safely defined standard, since experimentation and other people's money doesn't always blend smoothly. For that matter, I'm not sure how stable HTML5 is, and I have even less of a clue as to how much of it is implemented by the various browsers, or what can be faked.
Hence the dare. The only way any standard gets the kinks worked out is for people to start banging on the tires. So let's do it!
To put my money where my mouth is, I'll be attempting to get CSSquirrel, my personal blog/comic/identity rack, up and running in HTML5. I'm sure I'll be cursing a lot during the process, but I've got a certain confidence that it'll go a lot more smoothly than my early experiments as a lad with taking spring-loaded toys apart and failing to put them back together. And, of course, I'll write about it, hopefully teaching a few people a thing or two in the process.
So, to get things rolling, you'll need a starting point. Here's the WHATWG's specs for HTML5, and here's the W3G's. I'm not sure if they differ, or to what degree, or who's has precedence, but between them there's enough to keep you scratching your head. If you plan on using any elements that IE doesn't recognize yet, you may need to utilize John Resig's HTML5 Shiv technique. If you're not feeling up to using new wacky elements like <article> in your markup, then consider at least getting in practice by utilizing class & id names that follow those naming conventions (an idea that Andy Clarke has championed here).
To make sure your code isn't going all wonky, you can now use the W3C's validator for HTML5.
And if you're feeling like that's not enough of a dare, you could also try to integrate RDFa at the same time. (More on RDFa in the future.)
