HTML 5 Reference Implementations

Question

I'm looking for a good article or description of what HTML 5 actually is or isn't. At Google I/O last year, I kept hearing that Google Gears can be thought of as a reference implementation of HTML 5. Shortly thereafter Yahoo's BrowserPlus plugin came out with similar functionality. And Firefox has some offline support, I think? So again, are these plugins/browsers considered to be HTML 5 implementations, and exactly what does HTML 5 cover (offline support?, local datastore?, better thread handling?)...

Fourdrinier

Answer 1

There is no such thing as an HTML5 reference implementation.

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Implementations_in_Web_browsers has information on what Web browsers have implemented so far regarding HTML5.

As for what HTML5 is. It is both a document and application language, defining various APIs applications can use, including storage and offline capabilities. For detailed information it is probably easiest to browse through the specification: http://www.whatwg.org/html5

"Threads" is part of a separate specification, done by basically the same group of people, named Web Workers: http://www.whatwg.org/ww

(Disclaimer: I'm a WHATWG Member and W3C HTML WG Member.)

Cobnut