Customer Reviews

What Is HTML5?

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It is really difficult to complain about something that is free but I did spend the time to read the entire pamphlet hoping that I'd find something useful; and I didn't. I'm not sure who the target audience is intended to be. It seemed to me that to understand the context of the thesis you'd have to know more than a little bit about HTML and DOM to begin with. But even with that little bit of HTML and DOM knowledge you'd be frustrated because you never get a clear example of HTML versus HTML5. And if you didn't have that baseline HTML and DOM expertise then I think that "What is HTML5?" would leave you baffled.

I gave two stars because the points the author makes are valid and important, and it didn't cost me anything but my time. I just think that the points could have been made as effectively (maybe more so) in a 300 word blog entry, which would have been worth the time to read.

HTML5 has been perhaps the most talked about revision of the web's native tongue since the early days of hyperlinked graphical online content. Over the years web has evolved far away from the paradigm of various linked "documents" which featured animation and interactivity as a bit of an afterthought. Various websites have become sophisticated enough to handle even the most demanding tasks that until recently on stand-alone desktop applications were capable of accomplishing. HTML alone was unable to handle many such applications on its own, and their implementation oftentimes require almost heroic efforts of coding wizardry and an alphabet soup of various online add-ons. This is where HTML5 comes in. It is designed from the ground up to be both compatible with previous versions of HTML, and provide the developer with an integrated approach to a whole variety of online formats and behaviors.

Brett McLaughlin's "What Is HTML5?" is a longish article that aims to explain the rationale and importance of HTML5 from a very conceptual standpoint. This eBook is aimed primarily at the web developer community, but even those of us who are less immersed in all the intricacies of cool website design can appreciate the information that we can glean from reading this material. This is not a technical introduction to HTML5, so if you are looking for a brief description of all the new tags and features you will be seriously disappointed. However, if you are interested in understanding how exactly is HTML5 revolutionizing web development and what its implementation means for the whole industry, then you will find many very interesting insights and points within this eBook. For instance, there are certain misconceptions about what is the exact relation between HTML5 and JavaScript, as well as about the causal relation between web on mobile devices and the advent of HTML5. McLaughlin tries to clear up some of the confusion, and in my opinion he largely succeeds in this.

One of my favorite things about this book is its style: McLaughlin approaches the subject of HTML5 relatively casually, and his writing is peppered with colorful imagery and healthy dose of humor. Even though this short eBook is aimed at the technical audience, it is not written in geek-speak. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the latest developments in web standards and technology.

A good read. The tone and content of the article is simple, allowing for quick assimilation.

The author has not made this into a language syntax. The article traces the history of HTML, starting with large documents, lots of links to other documents and now to a collage, a mashup based approach where content resides in multiple web servers. The article correlates the use of Javascript and Flash in traditional HTML and the power that comes with HTML5. Attached some choice snippets from the article

* Once you really understand HTML5, you'll change the way you think about the web.

* HTML5 is again the most usable and indexable tool available for web content; the content is even richer than before

* The winners in an HTML5 world are those who stop fearing being stolen from, and actually start handing out their candy to every kid on the block

Absolute waste of time if you are a coder.

If you are manager or analyst and just want to get an idea of what HTML5 is and why it's such a big deal on an extremely high level, this book _may_ be worth your time, though I would still say its too high level and 1-dimensional.

I got out of the book as much as I paid for it.

An excellent piece of writing and a pleasure to read. Most books on similar subjects are too dry and too difficult to comprehend if it's about a new concept for me. Brett's lively treatment helped me grasp what I've struggled to understand and enabled me to put the thoughts together so that even I get the sense of it.

I've been working out of a hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere so long I must thank Brett for this excellent piece of work. Even though it will take going over several times to make it work for me it's on my Mac Kindle to view it any time I need to.

Thanks again,

Charles / EuroPartsHouse.com

Some of the other reviewers are less than delighted that this book has no direct instructions on how to use HTML5. That was actually what I liked about it. There are many books about how to code in HTML and HTML5, but I'm not aware of that many that focus on the context -- what makes HTML5 similar to or different from other flavors of HTML; what are the strengths and weaknesses of HTML5; what problems was HTML5 designed to address; what are the alternatives to HTML5 (and their strengths and weaknesses); what other coding languages and tools make good partners to use with HTML5; strategically, how can you make intelligent plans to incorporate HTML5 in your own work or that of your enterprise; what types of products or projects are a good match for HTML5; what are currently HTML5 best practices; and expected future directions. There is more, of course. This short book is written in accessible language for people with some experience coding, but you do not need to be an expert to understand the content. The insights of this book would be especially valuable to managers who determine directions for programming projects, but are not necessarily coders themselves, as well as for people who are coders in other languages who are trying to decide if HTML5 is worth pursuing for their specific goals.

The author seemed more intent on proving his vocabulary then on communicating anything worthwhile. I found the info somewhat helpful at best, but only because I understand technospeak. Anyone unfamiliar with W3C specs will probably be lost in all his jargon.

The author did a really good job of introducing the ideas behind HTML5 and why in his opinion you should consider using the technology. This is an easy read and done in under an hour. It may provide you with enough evidence as to if you should learn HTML5 now or wait until it is fully hatched.

The title says it all. The article felt disjointed and I felt as if the author was rambling most of the time. It felt like more of an opinion piece then anything else. It was nice the author made this free, but as the saying goes, "you get what you pay for sometimes".

This book is an attempt to describe the new features offered by HTML5, however the author seems to be stuck on the words 'video' and 'audio'. There is also a great attempt, with little success, to bring some humor around, similar to the 'For Dummies' series.

The book in itself offers little to what HTML5 has to offer, and I would not recommend you read it unless you have nothing else to do.