It’s always cool to see new user groups forming—especially new user groups focused on cutting-edge stuff. That’s why I’m excited to see what comes out of the HTML5-PDX group, a new user group dedicated to exploring the offerings of HTML5 like native video, geolocation, and client-side storage.
And tonight, the HTML5-PDX group kicks off with its first meeting with what may also be the inaugural meeting in Nedspace Old Town.
So what is HTML5 exactly? Well, it’s an improvement to the HTML many of us have been using since the late ’90s.
HTML 4 became a W3C Recommendation in 1997. While it continues to serve as a rough guide to many of the core features of HTML, it does not provide enough information to build implementations that interoperate with each other and, more importantly, with a critical mass of deployed content. The same goes for XHTML 1, which defines an XML serialization for HTML 4, and DOM Level 2 HTML, which defines JavaScript APIs for both HTML and XHTML. HTML 5 will replace these documents.
Long story short, HTML5 is designed to help people do more of what today’s Web does by native HTML, instead of relying on plugins and extensions.
A new standard is great, but it’s worthless without browser support. That’s why the initial meeting will focus on the current state of browsers and their proposed support for HTML5.
Sound interesting? Get more information on attending tonight’s HTML5 meeting via Calagator. And if you’d like to stay in tune with what the group is up to, join the HTML5-PDX Google Group.
(Image courtesy Marco Gomes. Used under Creative Commons.)
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Thanks, Igal! I really appreciate your taking those and linking them up. 😉
I posted notes of the meeting, which featured presentations on HTML5 support in Firefox by Dietrich Ayala and in Safari by Bram Pitoyo: http://groups.google.com/group/html5-pdx/browse_thread/thread/ccf7952f45698071