Is HTML5 worth your while?

HTML is the code used to program what you see on the screen when you view a website in a browser. HTML5 is the latest incarnation of this language, which has been in it’s previous form since 1997. With such an increase in the use of video, audio, graphics and animations in websites, HTML5 has extra commands to make programming this easier, and also to make websites more compatible with different browsers and search engines.

A large reason for the development of HTML5 audio and video is to replace third-party software like Flash, which uses up bandwidth and computer power – plus can’t be read by search engines like Google. HTML5 uses the computer’s own audio and video capabilities, which today’s computers handle easily – speeding up web pages and allowing information in web pages to be used for searching and statistics.

HTML5 is widely supported by the main browsers

Though different browsers support different features.

The main features that are generally supported by all the main browsers are:

• Advanced graphics
• Embedded video (though video formats differ between browsers)
• Embedded audio (again, audio formats differ)
• Animation

As new versions of browsers are released, we get ever-closer to a standard implementation of HTML5 (and it’s partner, CSS3) so that all these new features can be used across the board, no matter which browser you use.

There are however a few questions about how HTML5 handles mobile, but where there’s a demand there will always be code monkeys catching up.

Either way you better get acquainted with HTML5.