A Quite Biased History of HTML5

1.  “content type” or“MIME type” in response header is the only thing that determineswhat a particular resource truly is, and therefore how it should be rendered.Images, JavaScript files and CSS stylesheets all have their own MIMEtypes. Everything has its own MIME type. The web runs on MIMEtypes.

2.  HTML has alwaysbeen a conversation between browser makers, authors, standards wonks, and otherpeople who just showed up and liked to talk about angle brackets. Most of thesuccessful versions of HTML have been “retro-specs,” catching up to the worldwhile simultaneously trying to nudge it in the right direction. Anyone whotells you that HTML should be kept “pure” (presumably by ignoring browsermakers, or ignoring authors, or both) is simply misinformed. HTML has never beenpure, and all attempts to purify it have been spectacular failures, matchedonly by the attempts to replace it.

3.  XHTML 1.0 defineda new MIME type for XHTML documents, application/xhtml+xml. However, to ease the migration of existing HTML4 pages, it also included Appendix C,that “summarizes design guidelines for authors who wish their XHTML documentsto render on existing HTML user agents.” Appendix C said you were allowed toauthor so-called “XHTML” pages but still serve them with the text/html MIME type.  XHTML 1.1 added only a fewminor features on top of XHTML 1.0, but also eliminatedthe “Appendix C” loophole. With an estimated error rate of 99% on existingpages, the ever-present possibility of displaying errors to the end user, andthe dearth of new features in XHTML 1.0 and 1.1 to justify thecost, web authors basically ignored application/xhtml+xml. they “upgraded”to XHTML syntax but kept serving it with a text/html MIME type.

4.      WHATWorking Group(Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group) took adifferent approach: documenting the “forgiving” error-handling algorithms thatbrowsers actually used. They spent five years successfully documenting how to parse HTML in a way thatis compatible with existing web content. WHATworking group was on a specification, initially dubbed Web Forms 2.0,that added new types of controls to HTML forms. Another was adraft specification called “Web Applications 1.0,” that included major newfeatures like a direct-modedrawing canvas and native support for audio and video without plugins.

5.      In October 2006, W3C chartered a completely new HTML group with WHATworking group. One of the first things the newly re-chartered W3C HTML WorkingGroup decided was to rename “Web Applications 1.0” to “HTML5.”