draco.sg

Everyday that I browse Reddit, I’m bound to come across some priceless comments. Today there is one that describes why my web design always feels minimalistic , or ugly, depending on how generous you are.

I would suggest subcontracting your design work. Find a designer you trust and develop a relationship for this sort of thing. If you try to do design and development your designs will end up suffering because you’ll (unconsciously) design in such a way as to minimize your work building templates. “Sure, it’d be nice to have a subtle gradient underneath the header, but that’s another hour of coding and it will be hell to fix in IE, and you can really hardly notice it anyway. . . ”

It’s the details that really make a design, and a dedicated designer who doesn’t have an ulterior motive is best equipped for the task.

Can’t say it any better myself. Which is why I’m leaning towards coding, with occasional pathetic attempts at designing.

In my presentation, for the sake of most non-developers present, I deliberately left out some information about HTML5 that I felt was irrelevant or will be confusing. If you are interested to know more, please read on.

Error handling

One of the main objectives of HTML5 that is missing from previous revisions of HTML is that not only does it define how browser vendors should go about rendering correct codes, it also defines precisely how they should handle erroneous codes. The current lack of such specification resulted in unpredictable error handling/parsing in different browsers today.

This single difference in having a precise error handling ensures that your document marked up in HTML5 will remain interoperable between devices in the future, whether your HTML code conforms to the spec, or not. And this matters because a large percentage of today’s websites do not conform, and may display differently in different browsers.

HTML5 vs XHTML5

Another thing that I wanted to go into was the serializations of HTML5. Today, people are used to calling any document attached with XHTML 1.0 doctype served with the MIME type text/html as XHTML document, and think that XHTML 1.0 Strict is actually more semantic than HTML 4.01 Strict. It is a little confusing, but they are wrong on both counts.

In HTML5, this confusion is resolved by having the only difference between both XHTML and HTML in the serialization. A document marked up in conforming XML syntax is a XHTML5 document if it is served with the media type application/xhtml+xml, and HTML5 document with text/html.

Put it simply, one specification, two serializations. No more specs that define transitional, frameset, nor strict rules. Just one HTML5 spec to rule them all. This single spec will define what is presentation that should be left out, and what is structural that should be included. (Though it does not always make the right choice, especially with font tag.)

New elements, and DOM

It was not immediately obvious why the new elements matter. If you are a purist, you would be aware of their added semantic values to a document marked up in HTML5. Some of them, such as video matter because they have a fallback content and does not require 3rd-party plugins (Flash) to operate, which means users with old browsers will not be greeted with empty space. And if the end-user does not have the codec, further fallback videos could be defined with several sources.

<video>
 <source src=things.ogv type=video/ogg>
 <source src=things.mp4 type=video/mp4>
</video>

If video/ogg is not found, use video/mp4. The ability to do this natively triumphs over the need to use external plugins or JavaScript.

The others, such svg (which I omitted) are important because they are injected right into the DOM. This means that they can be manipulated with JavaScript (attaching event listeners) and CSS(positioning) like any other element such as div. Some of the HTML5 API also make use of this fact to further allow you to manipulate the elements.

Oh, and HTML5 allows svg to be used in HTML serialization!

Conclusion

This is not an exhaustive lists of benefits of HTML5, just something that I personally feel is important and thought people might want to know. Oh if you are still not excited by HTML5, it is fine. Because no matter what, you will eventually have to move on to HTML5 because it is the only successor to HTML and XHTML (for now).

Thanks for listening/reading.

I often forget that my lack of reaction towards insults being hurled at me does not mean that others are equally immunized. It is a shame that after spending many years trying to find out what is the purpose of life (and it is not 42), I do not understand the very fundamental of life, that is having a friendship or kinship.

Earlier on I was informed by a good friend that my problem is having low (close to 0) E.Q. and if he is right, that means that I have difficulties understanding, using, perceiving and managing emotions. I think he might be right on all accounts–I do have problems with emotions (or the lack thereof) which explains why I don’t react to insults. I seek solace in knowing that at least I take criticisms in stride, or so it seems.

Seems like it takes more than sincerity to be a friend although one would argue friends should accept one another for who they are. It is too bad there is no telling who I might have offended with my straight-forward thoughts and random sarcasms that should come as no surprise if no one appreciates them.

Maybe I should stop reading books and start focusing on how to be a human being instead since some things in life are not learned from books but from experience. Well, I hope I won’t burn myself as a result of going out there to make new friends, because you know, nerds can’t go out under the sun.

So I was at the supermarket earlier today. Wanting to grab something from the top of the shelf, I asked the uncle who was in the way if he could move a little, Excuse me, uncle, can move a bit so I can take cup noodle?.

I was not prepared for what came next, he actually answered (this conversation was in mandarin of course), if you put in your best, you can do anything. It was actually a good laugh but I thought nothing of it at that moment.

Now that I think about it, I am fairly convinced he was me. From the future. To tell me that I need to work hard and stop procrastinating like I have been for the past 23 years. Nothing like a good old epiphany.

In about 50 years’ time, when I solve the Grandfather Paradox and travel back to warn the then 23 years old me, I will know this man was me for sure.

Off to work hard now!

Just like how I did it last year, it is time most American series are coming back and here’s a list of dates you might wanna keep track:

• Supernatural – 10 September 2009
• The Office – 17 September 2009
• How I Met Your Mother – 21 September 2009
• The Big Bang Theory – 21 September 2009
• Grey’s Anatomy – 24 September 2009
• Family Guy – 27 September 2009
• The IT Crowd – TBC

All sources taken from imdb.com so I would think they are pretty accurate. And it’s a shame My Name Is Earl has been discontinued.