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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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The problem with all innovations in the browser, is the very long uptake for people to upgrade their browsers. In order to get the penetration numbers seen in Flash, you generally have to wait 5 years once the innovations are in all the major browsers. IE7 came out in 2006, but it will likely be another 2 years before enough IE6 users have upgraded for the browser version to drop bellow 5%. Even then there will be clients who will want to support a legacy browser such as IE6 until it drops bellow 1%.
The other big issue with HTML5 (or AJAX) compared to Flash is working with browser incompatibilities. It can result in different code bases for different browsers. Look at Google and their support for their own product Google Wave, which despite their large resources, they have working only in specific browsers, and are still working getting features working on other browsers such as IE and Opera. Had Google gone with Flex, Silverlight or JavaFX, it would be already working across all browsers.
Finally, JavaScript is really hard to work with to build large applications with. Developers complain about the limitations of ActionScript 3, yet with JavaScript it's more like trying to build applications in ActionScript 1 (which I've done and it's really painful). This might have changed with ECMAScript 4, but with the decision to go with Microsoft's ECMAScript 3.1 (now renamed ECMAScript 5) has push back the evolution of the language by many years. The new watered down version of ECMAScript 4, now called ECMAScript 6 is still far off. Once that's implemented it will once again take a few years before all browsers support a new version of JavaScript and then we will have to once again wait around 5 years for a wide user base to update their browsers.
Finally, as for 3D in the browser there's still a lot of issues to work out, which this article from Ars Technica goes into. I think we will eventually see 3D in browsers, but I think we are still many years away and the end result might not be WebGL 3D. By that time the Flash Player will have likely evolved in 3D far beyond what capable now in Flash.
Just as Flex framework and the Flash Player will be a lot further along by the time HTML5 actually becomes a serious competitor in RIA development.
Just an FYI, that techon.nikkeibp.co.jp article had some translation issues... some of the things written there were inaccurate.
jd/adobe
John,
Would you or one of your co-workers please talk about the WebKit features that have been implemented in AIR, and how they might be accessed?
Mike
"coopetition" ???
seriously?
I keep seeing these suggestions that somehow HTML5 is going to knock the Flash and Silverlight platforms to the side. I just don't see this happening anytime soon simply because there are too many chefs in the kitchen.
The reason the plugins will be with us for quite a while to come is simply because they are controlled by one entity. MS and Adobe do whatever they feel is in the best interest of their plugin. If someone at these companies has a great idea it can be inserted into their codebase quite easily since they completely control it. HTML5, on the other hand, has several companies involved pursuing their own interests which just drags things out. It takes time for these people to agree on anything and now MS is starting to jump into the game.
As Matthew pointed out, HTML5 will simply take too long to be considered proper competition. 2012? That's being generous considering we still have people stuck with IE6. If MS would issue patches for IE7 and IE8 to provide HTML5 for those browsers immediately then things would get interesting. Otherwise, the standard has a long way to go. Never mind the fact we are ASSUMING that all the browsers will implement all the HTML5 features and implement them in the same way. By the time HTML5 is ready for prime time in the RIA landscape where will we be with Flash and Silverlight?
re: "Would you or one of your co-workers please talk about the WebKit features that have been implemented in AIR, and how they might be accessed?"
I don't know that the next version of AIR has had much discussion yet, but I'll point staff here to your post, maybe we can get some general early guidance.
jd/adobe
HTML Coding part only