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Wow, that’s really nicely written. Thanks for pointing to this. 
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Ah ok now i got it. Sorry…
So it’s a completely useless comparison.
HTML5 is also available as a multipage version, BTW. And HTML4 has single page versions in plain text, postscript and PDF.
So let’s compare the plain text versions.
HTML4 - 792,282 bytes
HTML5 - remove the listing of the inline cross-references, 3,137,665 bytes
But this is still not a fair comparison. HTML5 replaces HTML4, XHTML1 and DOM2 HTML. Furthermore, HTML4 deferred parsing to SGML while HTML5 specifies parsing itself, so you need to compare HTML5 to SGML+HTML4+XHTML1+DOM2 HTML. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to find plain text versions of the other specs and sum up their sizes.
Thanks for posting that before I saw it. W3Schools is a liability to Web Development and use of it should never be encouraged.
Wish they had contact info somewhere on the site (or if there is I’ll be damned if I can find it) – I love the concept but they have some inaccuracies that just make them look foolish. (and some omissions).
Of course that the page is an accessibility train wreck 
Still love the concept because yes, W3Schools is a mix of web rot, bad methodologies and outright misleading of nubes.
Need something like that for Dynamic Drive while we’re at it.
basically i’ve have been teaching myself html/css and now html 5. Throughout school i’ve seen kids using macintosh and linux ubuntu, and all these computer can browse the web that’s coded in HTML5. So why choose not use html5, you can also use http://www.modernizr.com/ to ensure maximum presentation vaue right?
“The facts that Internet Explorer has inferior support for what are standard, contemporary selectors within the CSS 2.1 specification. So what happens sometime in the murky future when Microsoft distributes a more modern browser–one that supports all of these features? Theoretically nothing, if all selectors and effects are supported equally-- this hypothetical version 7 of Internet Explorer for Windows would simple render the page as Mozilla and other browsers currently view it, and the world is a wonderful place.”
D.Shea,E.Holzschlag, D. S. (2005), Pg.211 . The Zen of CSS Design. Peachpit Press.
It’s similar to the debate over whether a life support machine should be used to keep someone alive. Some say yes, some no. Modernizr is a life support system, and it seems to work, but I don’t understand why you’d use that when in most cases HTML4 provides everything you need. Some proposed HTML5 elements may change before this version of HTML is finished, too.
i actually noticed exactly that while trying to figure out the <time> tag, that they were considering changing it. So yes, they might change tags by the end, but, they still will be useful in HTML5 right?
That’s the point Ralph is making. Some elements may change before the specification is finished, so until the final version is completed, nobody can answer that question with certainty. Yes, you can use HTML5 with Modernizr, but that relies on Javascript, and you have no control over whether the person using your site has Javascript enabled or not. So why choose a design method that includes so many uncertainties, when HTML4 is fully supported by all modern browsers?
… and can do pretty much 99% of what HTML 5 brings to the table so far as markup is concerned on real world deployment? Usually with less code if you try to use their new structural rules. (which again, seem to exist JUST to placate the nimrods still vomiting up HTML 3.2, slapping a tranny on it, and saying “close enough”)
HTML 5, so far as the actual HTML parts go, offers maybe ONE useful thing for forms, and everything else in the spec is redundant, pointless, adds bloat if you follow the rules (assuming you can even understand the rules – ASIDE for example) and is most likely the real reason CSS3 and the new javascripted stuff was slapped under it’s banner as one all-encompassing monster of a spec… because without them the Emperor has no clothes.
The only reason I can even think ANYONE would actually support the use of HTML 5 for building websites is to sell more books, video tutorials, podcasts, etc… as there is certainly ZERO benefit in terms of actually building websites over 4.01 Strict and/or XHTML 1.0 Strict! (which you can use CSS3 and the new .js features with anyways)
Ooh, new, shiny… doesn’t necessarily mean better.
interesting i thought HTML5 would be useful because of tag like <audio> and <video> but technically sure you could use this in a document that is html 4. I find this place to be a good place to get insight on HTML5 because the problem is finding the right information and using it!
It may be useful one day, but the worry is that browser makers won’t agree on single audio/video formats that can be used everywhere. At the moment, it’s an embarrassing mess that threatens to sink these elements. There isn’t great support for these experimental elements yet anyway.
The people developing HTML5 want us to move away from the idea of HTML versions, calling it a “living standard”. This basically means that you don’t need to draw a line in the sand between HTML4 and 5. There’s basically HTML, and you can pick and choose elements based on browser support. The only thing to change from your HTML4 documents might be to move to the generic doctype etc.:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
People are getting around this by uploading several different video formats, kind of like how people are uploading several different fonts for font-face.
Yes indeed, but what a mess. That’s not viable long-term, so unless it’s sorted, I doubt it will take off.
Which are redundant to OBJECT and less useful. It’s part of what I mean when talking about it undoing the progress of HTML 4. One of the core concepts of HTML 4 was removing not just presentational elements, but redundant ones too. MENU and DIR were pulled as redundant to UL for example.
In the case of OBJECT, it was intended to replace Applet and the proprietary EMBED and BGSOUND… and eventually it was supposed to even replace IMG… in doing so it allowed file formats to be added when/if better ones came along, so you weren’t locked in to any one format for non-html data.
Now with HTML 5, EMBED is official for no good reason, and VIDEO/AUDIO do nothing more than add more tags for no good reason, and lock you into deploying each browser makers pet codec and container formats… hardcoding it into the browser with no real interface for simply adding new formats as they arrive. It’s a zero improvement scenario and just another example of the idiocy that the new spec is.
… and before peanut gallery chimes in with “It would be harder to add the new scripting and formats to OBJECT” – BULLCOOKIES. If a switch/case statement is “too hard” or using a different object constructor is ‘tough’, there is something fundamentally flawed with the SKILL of the programmers working on it.
Ogg sucks, WebM is blurry with little to no hardware decode assist, and H.264 is proprietary… oh yes, SUCH an improvement.
Is there anything better than could or should be used?
It’s certainly not viable for any business serious about video communication, where volume is the key. Yeah, it’s a problem because the vendors all have such strong opinions that it makes standardization such a pain, but what is new, right?
Now with HTML 5, EMBED is official for no good reason, and VIDEO/AUDIO do nothing more than add more tags for no good reason, and lock you into deploying each browser makers pet codec and container formats… hardcoding it into the browser with no real interface for simply adding new formats as they arrive.
Embed is in the specs because the HTML5 spec doesn’t PROSCRIBE as much as it DESCRIBES. Like, you know, the dictionary’s got “ain’t” in it because people use it, not because we should be using it? HTML5 specs were designed to describe and be written to what browsers understand today in addition to adding shiny new junk. This was partially because they needed to write a new parser with unified error rendering and this meant needing to look up, document, and rewrite how browsers parsed HTML(4).
The point of <audio> and <video> is to do for <object> what <header> does for <div>. <object> is meaningless: all you know is, you’re calling some Joe Random File. That’s it.
(and yes, today <audio>, <video> and <header> are also meaningless to user agents and software. What’s new)
The HTML does not hard-encode jack for formats. Instead, they left it out entirely. Like they did with <img>. You’re only writing 500 video formats because browser vendors are being jokers. It actually has little to do with HTML. It’s all about retards doing the kangaroo boxing about patents and other crap that should die horribly in a fire.
<object> doesn’t save you from that crap. You want your video to be seen by as many people as possible? You’re still making 500 different encodings anyway. Or tell everyone they have to have Flash player even though it sucks accessibility balls 99% of the time and Adobe hates Linux with the passion of a pizzeria owner killing the cockroaches in his kitchen.
People, you want to use HTML5? Go use it. Just don’t be stupid and use something that might actually be useful cause there’s a good chance Hixie will wake up some morning and decide it smells and should be thrown out or something. Treat the unstable spec as it is: unstable. You want to sell that stuff to clients?? Be 100% prepared to rewrite it a few months later, cause oh noes! the spec has changed (like the people in the comments here did when they decided to use the DRAFT SPEC WebSQL for production code). Oh and you’ll rewrite it for free, or you’re ripping your client off. We don’t go to the car lot and expect experimental cars do we? No.
Am I using some HTML5? Yes. But I’ve never been accused of being smart. I have all the rope I need to hang myself. Joys.