HTML 5.1 is a W3C Recommendation

[bryanlarsen]

This is a completely irrelevant document. Browser makers follow standards written by the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group), not the W3C.

I'm horribly oversimplifying, but to see the full ugliness, just google 'whatwg w3c'

[haikuginger]

Rather, the WHATWG writes standards that comply with what browser makers do.

[roblabla]

Any specific article explaining what the difference between the two are ? My google being in french, I don't get much results...

[andrewmcwatters]

> This is a completely irrelevant document.

This is NOT true. W3C vs WHATWG is a "political" issue. Saying either group publishes completely irrelevant documents is misleading.

[WoodenChair]

From section 1.5:

It must be admitted that many aspects of HTML appear at first glance to be nonsensical and inconsistent.

HTML, its supporting DOM APIs, as well as many of its supporting technologies, have been developed over a period of several decades by a wide array of people with different priorities who, in many cases, did not know of each other’s existence.

Features have thus arisen from many sources, and have not always been designed in especially consistent ways. Furthermore, because of the unique characteristics of the Web, implementation bugs have often become de-facto, and now de-jure, standards, as content is often unintentionally written in ways that rely on them before they can be fixed.

That kind of says it all when it comes to web standards!

[Torgo]

I think about this when I am using XMLHttpRequest in a web worker, and can't actually get an XML document back because you don't have access to an xml parser because there's no dom in web workers.

[wppick]

> This specification should be read like all other specifications. First, it should be read cover-to-cover, multiple times. Then, it should be read backwards at least once. Then it should be read by picking random sections from the contents list and following all the cross-references.

Not sure if this is serious. https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/REC-html51-20161101/introduction....

[Manishearth]

It's mostly an import of the whatwg spec, which gets whimsical at times.

That is actually a pretty accurate representation of how reading entire specs with intent to implement goes. I've done this twice with the xhr and file specs :) Maybe not the reading backwards part.

[mstade]

I don't think it is. It reminds me of something I've read before. I immediately thought of Hitchiker's Guide, but can't find the reference so it might not be. Still, I have a very distinct feeling I've read this before.

[Osiris]

Is there a document somewhere that summaries the proposed changes from HTML 5 to 5.1?

[rspeer]

I found this table [1] that lists features specific to HTML 5.1 and their status in current versions of browsers.

[1] https://w3c.github.io/test-results/html51/implementation-rep...

[piotrkubisa]

I assume this document [1] may cover some changes.

[1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/REC-html51-20161101/changes.html#...

[myfonj]

There is also a diffed single page HTMLs at github [0], (11 MiB download; quite surprised my Firefox managed to render it).

What I've found interesting is that markup for insertions and deletions in this file is ("non-semantic") `<span class="delete">..</span><span class="insert">..</span>`, instead of presumably more semantically appropriate `<del>..</del><ins>..</ins>` [1].

[0] https://github.com/w3c/html/blob/master/diff/html5to51diff.h... [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/REC-html51-20161101/edits.html#el...

[yuhong]

I have been thinking of the "HTML5" buzzword and its problems for a while now.

[nbb]

I have been thinking about where to go to lunch.

[moron4hire]

Care to elaborate? What specifically is wrong with HTML5? And how is it particularly worse than other offerings?