Posts from May 2010

Following on my “HTML5 vs. Flash” talk of a couple of weeks ago, I’m hoping to do a bit of blogging about HTML5, Flash, mobile apps, and more.  But first I need to get some terminology straight.

As I did in my talk, I’m going to refer to the collection of front-end web-standards technologies — (X)HTML (of any flavor), CSS, and JavaScript — as “the web stack”.  I’ve seen the term used here and there and it makes the most sense to me as a condensed verbal shorthand.  It beats writing out the specific technologies every time or trying to use similarly clumsy constructions like “front-end tech”.  If you like, think of “web stack” as a rough equivalent to “Ajax” — a term that was invented because continually saying “asynchronous JavaScript + CSS + DOM + XMLHttpRequest” was unworkable.

The web stack sort of includes downloadable fonts, but only in the same sense that images or any other external resource is part of the stack.  SImilarly, it encompasses frameworks like jQuery in the sense that they’re built out of the components of the web stack.

When I use the term “web stack”, though, I’m not referring to back-end technologies.  Those things are important, certainly, but not from the front-end point of view.  A browser doesn’t care if your page was generated by PHP, Django, Rails, Perl, or what have you.  It doesn’t even care if the server runs on Apache or something else.

Furthermore, it doesn’t refer to plugins.  Yes, that means Flash, but it also means QuickTime, Real, ActiveX, and so forth.  What I need to make clear is that I’m not doing this in an attempt to imply that plugins don’t belong on the web at all.  They’re just not part of that core web stack any more than the web stack is part of them.  That doesn’t stop them working together, obviously.

Okay, so that’s out of the way, and I hope my meaning is sufficiently clear to everyone.  Please do leave a comment if it isn’t.  Onward!

• The Web Stack was published on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010.
• It was assigned to the Browsers, Standards, and Web categories.
• There have been forty-four replies.

Earlier this week I presented a talk at the Web 2.0 Expo titled “HTML5 vs. Flash: Webpocalypse Now?” which seemed to be pretty well received.  That might be because I did my best to be unbiased about the situation both now and into the future, and also that the audience was very heavily weighted toward web stack practitioners.  Seriously, out of 100-150 audience members, about six raised their hand when I asked who was developing with Flash.

Many people have asked if the slides will be available.  Indeed so:  head on over to the session page, which I encourage attendees of the talk to visit so that you can leave a rating or comment on the session.  The 5.4MB PDF of my Keynote slides is available there whether you attended or not.

While I was at the conference I was also interviewed by Mac Slocum on the topics of the HTML and Flash, and that’s been put up on YouTube along with interviews with Brady Forrest and Ge Wang (both of whom are awesome).  I haven’t watched it so I don’t know how dorky I come off but I’ll bet it’s pretty dorky.

I indulged in a little good-natured ribbing of Adobe at the front of the interview (I kid because I love!) but the rest of it is, as best I recall, a decent distillation of my views.  I’m hoping to get a few more detailed thoughts written and published here in the next week or two.

Many thanks to Brady Forrest and the entire Web 2.0 crew for having me on stage and getting me out to San Francisco.  It’s always a great place to visit.

• Web 2.0 Talk: HTML5 vs. Flash was published on Friday, May 7th, 2010.
• It was assigned to the (X)HTML, HTML5, Speaking, and Web categories.
• There have been five replies.