HTML5 trailer - Find your Hero

HTML 5 will deal with invalid code by making any old code valid. How does this solve anything?

HTML 5 will solve it not by making old invalid code valid (though some of that will happen, too) but by making the way user agents treat invalid code consistent. Q: "How should this spiffy user agent we're making deal with the majority of the web - the pages that are invalid?" Current A: "Do some like Internet Explorer does, do some like Netscape did, do some like Mozilla does, and do the rest as you see fit." Post-HTML-5 A: "Do this way." --> UA parsing part of the spec

Much invalid code will remain invalid, but in difference to the current situation user agent makers will have a well detailed and reasonable specification for how they should treat that invalid code. They no longer have to decide for every feature: "Should I do this like Internet Explorer does it? Like Mozilla does it? Like Netscape did it? (Yes, this is still a factor - Internet Explorer is made on this premise) Should I just do what makes sense for me?"

HTML 5 is better for web developers than the current situation because it provides new features that they want to use and makes it easier to write code that works in every browser at once instead of having to meticulously write everything so that you avoid that nasty bug in this browser and this nasty bug in that browser etc.

HTML 5 is better for browser makers than the current situation because it makes clear rules for how to handle errors so that they don't have to reverse engineer the others.

HTML 5 is better for users of browsers than the current situation because it does it's best to make sure that no matter which browser is used, the code will be treated the same way, will display the same, will function the same way.

All in all, HTML 5 is better because it leaves fewer gray areas, particularly when it comes to error handling. This means less pain for users because developers didn't target their particular browser, platform etc; and less pain for developers caused by browsers having different ideas for error handling.

I have been under a rock for the past few years and disappointed to crawl out and find the world moving away from XHTML which seemed to me so much like a step in the right direction. oh well. This is from the WHATWG FAQ page: "It is estimated that HTML5 will reach a W3C recommendation in the year 2022 or later. This will be approximately 18-20 years of development, since beginning in mid-2004."

2010? optimistic...