It won't be ready for prime time this year, and probably not next year, but the HTML5 specification is firming up and current implementations suggest a that HTML5 will be a strong platform for RIAs. People familiar with other versions of HTML might assume that Flex would have a few advantages over HTML5: AIR (no browser required) and data services (distributed computing.) The neologism ' coopetition' might be an apt term for the relationship between HTML5 and Flex.
Here is the current HTML5 spec. WHATWG, the organization behind HTML5, describes themselves as "founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. So, in response, these organizations set out with a mission to address these concerns and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group was born.
"It is estimated by the editor that HTML5 will reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012. That doesn't mean you can't start using it yet, though. Different parts of the specification are at different maturity levels. Some sections are already relatively stable and there are implementations that are already quite close to completion, and those features can be used today." Market forces may accelerate the WHATWG projected time line somewhat.
I was interested to read about the HTML5 datagrid in the spec, as well as support for off-line web applications, undo support, message channels and message queues.
Here's a little fun for you (use Firefox 3.5+, Safari 4 or betas of Google Chrome or Opera. Imagine how much better the graphics would be once WebGL 3D is integrated with HTML5. That would give Flash a run for the money.
WebKit is implementing HTML5 rather quickly. WebKit is the core around which Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers are built. Microsoft is sitting on the proverbial fence.
AIR uses a customized version of WebKit for HTML rendering. Every time the AIR runtime is updated, the latest version of WebKit is incorporated. Currently, the AIR documentation on how to work with the embedded WebKit engine is sparse.
How long before a software organization uses HTML5 in a non-browser container, I wonder? Oh, right, it's already been done, although that project requires software that most Windows users do not have, such as Python. Fluid suffers from only working on Macs. Mozilla Prism is an interesting experiment, but has not gathered much momentum since it became available nearly two years ago. Appcelerator's Titanium is most promising, however.
How long before a mature HTML5-based distributed computing framework becomes a viable contender? Appcelerator's Entourage look interesting.
The future of RIA sounds like it might get very interesting, and possibly a bit more complex.
_______________________________
Mike Slinn
Independent full-service software contractor and author
Certifiied Adobe Flex 3 with AIR ACE
http://slinnbooks.com
http://mslinn.com
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