O’Reilly: Inside RIA

This excerpt is from "Dive Into HTML 5" which will be published in early 2010 by O'Reilly Media. The book will cover features from the upcoming HTML 5 specification and other emerging standards. HTML 5 is still a work-in-progress; browser support is listed at the beginning of each section.

It won't be ready for prime time this year, and probably not next year, but the HTML5 specification is firming up and current implementations suggest a that HTML5 will be a strong platform for RIAs. People familiar with other versions of HTML might assume that Flex would have a few advantages over HTML5: AIR (no browser required) and data services (distributed computing.) The neologism 'coopetition' might be an apt term for the relationship between HTML5 and Flex.

The Scalable Vector Graphics technology, SVG in short, seems to be experiencing nowadays its second (or third?) birth on the web. The browser vendors are investing heavily into lifting up what they initially prototyped long time before. This is true of Opera, Firefox, Safari and Chrome, but there is no clear indication on the plans to supporting SVG from the major browser vendor - Microsoft. True, Microsoft has recently made a vague statement on its commitment to support the standards and the thrilling web-as-a-platform thing aka HTML5, but in what extent and when? And what shall we do until that time has come, or until the older IE browser park has updated?

This poll was one that brought many votes and most of you don't feel that HTML 5 will be making any major impact any time soon. Over 40% of you voted for "I don't think so: HTML 5 doesn't touch...

We need an open honest discussion about HTML5 and what it means for the web. Unfortunately, you aren't going to get the truth from fanatics on either side, but instead we all need to examine all of the evidence and come to our own conclusions. I have spent a great deal of time analyzing the facts, and in the process I have made several observations.

HTML 5 has been the topic of buzz lately in the Internet/RIA world. With new features like Canvas, offline local storage, etc. many have been suggesting (including a recent article from infoworld) that HTML 5 could steal market share from...