I just finished reading HTML5 for Web Designers. In fact I also just started reading it! It was a short read (only 85 pages) but each and every one of those pages was chock full of information. I got a brief history of HTML5 and where it has come from as well as information on just how I can start using HTML5 in today’s environment, where only some browsers have limited support for various elements, and others may have none at all.
I for one got pretty excited about the possibilities while reading – both those that we can implement today and those that will be coming to us in the future. In particular the new form elements sound amazing, and of course, HTML5 video. It is wonderful to see that even when using most of these new tags (like the audio and video tags) that for browsers that don’t support them, there’s a simple and easy to use fallback. No more needing to worry about this or that or the other thing that is going to prevent this from working in a certain ancient Internet Explorer browser. No crazy workarounds!
For the most part I had been avoiding HTML5 because even though it has been getting a lot of buzz, I still felt like implementing it was silly because a day when browsers will actually support this fully is still going to be years away (not to mention the day when the general public is using the browsers that support this content). I’m glad to say however that the book proved me wrong. A lot of things have easy fallback capability built in – and if they don’t, this book suggests some ways to do so simply.
Overall, if you are interested in learning some more about HTML5, I’d recommend picking up this book. It is informative, it’s funny, and best of all it is readable. The content is designed to be read by an actual person and in my opinion was not dry at all. Absolutely worth the money I spent on it!