Can HTML Keep up with other RIA technologies?
Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 03:48AM One thing for sure there hasn’t been a dull moment in technology for a while. The ever increasing pace of change can make it almost as challenging as picking stocks to know which technology to choose.
HTML is one of the interesting technologies because it has been the foundation of the web evolution. Without going back on a history trip, lets just agree its been around for a while. Last updated with the HTML 4.01 specification back in 1999, and with a new HTML 5 specification in the works.
Recently, there’s been a lot of hype around HTML 5. In fact almost enough you might think it’s ready to go and fully supported. But as Philippe Le Hegaret simply stated on the W3C blog “HTML 5 isn’t a standard yet” The first draft of HTML 5 can be traced back over a year to January 2008. The most recent draft was just recently published. One challenge with HTML 5 is not all the players have been at the table. In fact Microsoft has just recently joined in, up till now it’s been a Google/ Apple show.
What’s the rush for HTML 5? Simple, HTML hasn’t kept pace with other emerging RIA technologies like Flash and Silverlight. HTML 5 promises a lot of fancy new features like built in video, audio, and local data storage to name a few that will close the gap. This has lead some to speculate if HTML 5 could be the death to Flash, Silverlight and other RIA technologies. I wouldn’t call your florist and order flowers for the funerals just yet….
Why you ask? HTML 5 is in a fight with some very nimble competing technologies. The RIA space has been fire with new features being released at neck breaking speed. Most RIA technologies like Flash and Silverlight have streamlined their release cycles to 9 months or less because they don’t have to battle it out with a standards committee. Most of the competing technologies simply depend on the object tag in HTML to host their plug-in and then they manage the plug-in area as they see fit. That means that Adobe only has to agree with them self for Flash changes, and same for Microsoft with Silverlight. HTML 5 has two big challenges. First, getting all the players to approve the new specification. Second, and probably an even more challenging aspect is to get it implemented in a consistent way in enough users browsers. Even today, with the push towards standards in IE8 most the time unless you have a real simple page it won’t look the same the first time you run it in the different browsers. In fact, sometimes they look radically different!
Like movie sequels you can’t help but think are we just trying to make HTML like all the other popular movies instead of letting it do what it was designed to do originally. By trying to morph it to be closer to RIA technologies do we risk causing even more fragmentation? I know for me, writing an application that just works in different browsers and even out of the browser is compelling. Anytime I spend time working on resolving a browser compatibility issue I feel it’s 100% wasted time that I could have spent building something with higher business value. Am I against standards? No, I think they have their place, however, the more complex they get the harder it is to get consensus and compliance.
So what do you think about HTML 5? Should we start a pool of when it will finally be approved?
Reader Comments (8)
I think you hit on several key points, but I would rather have an open standard to develop by then a proprietary one. Thats not to say that Flash/Silverlight isn't of value, and as a developer I enjoy the rapid pace of innovation that a proprietary technology can maintain, but your always at the mercy of the technology owner. That owner is driven by $$$ and its not uncommon for them to choose a path that maximizes the revenue aspect vs being better for the community. Does anyone not believe that Microsoft biggest reason for creating Silverlight was the success and proliferation of Flash? We need open standards as a checks and balance. I don't care for the fact that these companies are on the approver list when they have such conflicts of interests but what can you do?
Chess - I agree having some amount of open standards is good - but at some point if there's no unique innovation it becomes competitive parity. HTML 5 adding some enhancements - sounds good to me -but I ponder if it there's still some work left on it's original mission before it takes on a broader role.
Absolutley agree that proprietary one's are $$ driven...but isn't that what keeps them on the fast track?
I also wonder if in the RIA space if there's not some common ground that could start to be established without giving up the speed of change and if that would be an easier road to go down.
Thanks for commenting - it will be fun to see where all this leads to!
Until HTML gets a better language, or better yet, a choice of languages to work with, it will always be a weak sister.
The biggest advantage of Silverlight is the choice of many languages, and the advanced features of those languages.
HTML needs to break its dependency on Javascript... PERIOD!
David,
Great post, I've been thinking of writing something similar to this and I may still do it so if I do I'm not ripping you off :)
Back when AJAX came out, I wished that all of the smart people working on ASP.NET AJAX and other AJAX technologies would get together and try to build what could truly be a replacement for the antiquated HTML/Javascript platform. This is even more true with HTML5.
If everyone on HTML5 got together and created something new which addressed today's needs instead of putting band aids on technology that never was meant to do what it's doing I'd be thrilled and would embrace it. If I could use standards based technologies to do what I want that would be ideal.
Given the fact that that's not going to happen, I've chosen Silverlight, but others can choose Flash/Flex and more power to them, but it's clear that HTML5 is not the silver bullet, I wish it was.
HTML hasn't kept pace? Is Silverlight available on mobile? Is Flash - I mean real Flash -- the Flash that's used on the desktop web, not some "Flash Lite"?
I'm not an open source, "software should be free" nut, but with the coming age of a smartphone in every hand, HTML 5 will end up becoming the standard, because Flash and Silverlight will struggle with adoption. Apple's refusal to support Flash doesn't seem to be affecting sales and when's the last time you heard Microsoft talk about Silverlight mobile?
In the end, I think that what we'll see 5 years from now is that Flash will continue to be the favorite among the artsy, design folks, Silverlight will be the preferred choice for LOB apps and HTML will be the standard that everybody else uses for desktop and mobile, because it's the only one that will be supported by all browsers on all platforms, with a special emphasis on mobile.
Thanks Bill,look forward to your post its a good discussion to have and I doubt any of us have the crystal ball - Speaking of that I need to check my lottery #'s!
John - Microsoft on Mobile, and SL in particular on Mobile just hasn't come nearly as fast as I would like. I will stop there before I completly derail my self on a mobile discussion :) Great topic for a future blog post
You hit right the sensitive spot about HTML 5. Microsoft's interest has to mean something - in fact, it may have been on of the things that kept the draft from developing into a standard, and one that is supported across the board. OTOH, there's no way Microsoft's going to let their heavily-promoted plug-in lose as much as an inch of that it has gained. I'm seeing a dead end here, and am curious as to its resolution.
HTML 5 won't pose a threat until it implements the FULL rendering changes that will let it compete with RIA> Adding an open video codec is not going to kill RIA. Furthermore, as mentioned above how do I take advantage multithreading in JavaScript? I need to go through some kind of bridge....not going to fly in today's world with multiple cores on each workstation (2, 4, 6 etc)