Daily Review #6: Getting Started with HTML5

HTML5 Wallpaper Armando Martinez | Arnam Design

Getting Started with HTML5

If you've been holding off diving into the whirlpool that is HTML5 development, last week's Build announcements should have convinced you that now is the time to do jump on board, even as a Luddite member of the Borg collective who until now could safely regard HTML5 as some sort of conspiracy by the evil Steve Jobs to thwart competition from Adobe and Microsoft.

Of course when I say "HTML5" I do of course mean "the dozen or so disparate technologies that conveniently hang their hook off the term 'HTML5', and have widely differing support in all the different browsers". And that's before we even dip our toe in the waters of what exactly Microsoft means by the term 'Native HTML5' (proprietary much?)

Welcome back to the hell that was web development in the 90's!

There is a wealth of information available for free on the web of course. Too MUCH information. Just try following the excellent HTML5 Twitter account and try and keep your blood pressure down as you struggle to keep up with every information-packed tweet that will then totally dominate your TwitterStream (and you thought the fast and fluid Twitter stream was bad!)

Luckily the folks at Sitepoint have just kicked off their excellent Building Apps with HTML5 article series. Yup, you read that right. 'Apps'. Not some namby-pamby static web site. Good stuff!

And if you're still not convinced, reading the Sitepoint article, go read Mark Pesce's blog post How HTML5 Can Save Microsoft and Bite Apple on the Bum. Mark's an Aussie, but you probably guessed that from the blog title, right?! He thinks "HTML5 desktop apps are Microsoft's last best chance to avoid becoming a historical footnote.". Go read his blog post and see if you agree!

Today's "News" Links

	Sinofsky Reacts to 'Linux Lock Out' Stories (Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft) In case you missed the update to the main editorial yesterday, here's the link where Sinofsky reacts to the shitstorm stirred up by the whole UEFI Secure Boot story that broke on Wednesday. Examine it closely. It doesn't really say anything other than 'If Linux does get locked out it'll be the OEM's fault not ours'. Ah well, that's OK then! What were we all making such a fuss about?!
	A Preview of Windows Live for Windows 8 (Windows Live Team, Microsoft) The Windows Live team recap their Build presentations and also reveal what's planned for Windows 8 in the future.
	Something new on the Bing Homepage (Bing Team, Microsoft) Bing have gone all animated HTML5 on us. In this blog post they talk about recent changes.
	Gartner Says Apple Will Have a Free Run in Tablet Market Holiday Season as Competition Continues to Lag (Gartner Group) The Gartner Group delivered one of their regular 'State of the Market' reviews, and they're not as impressed by the Windows 8 announcements as most. 'Probably Too little and Probably too late' seems to be the general verdict and the see the current buzz as likely to be short-lived.

Today's "Opinion" Links

	Desktop Could be Windows 8's Killer Feature (Ward Bell, DevFusion) Ward's knocking out some excellent opinion pieces lately, and he takes a clever approach looking at Windows 8 - the opposite one to all those pundits talking only about Metro. It's a 'must read' if only for the part which points out the madness of a key Build demo (which had the Echo Chamber going wild with enthusiasm) which tried to tell us how much better an RSS feed that showed a few silly meaningless photos was than one which showed us a whole bunch of actual news titles. It's that sort of dumb thinking that gave us Mr Clippy! Bravo, Mr Ward for a well thought-out, nicely written piece!
	Windows 8 Fan Creates Video of Potential Metro Improvements (via WinRumours) Seems after the guy who made a video for Windows Phone got offered a job at Microsoft, everybody thinks that's the way to go. Nevertheless this video pointing out what should be changed in the Developer Preview of Windows 8 to improve it makes excellent points.
	Silverlight is Dead. F****** Dead (Vassil Terziev, Telerik) The most re-tweeted link of the day was this one yesterday. Looks like there's a Telerik echo chamber sitting right alongside the Microsoft one! (The title's ironic by the way. Quelle suprise!)
	Building Apps With HTML5 (Sitepoint) A quick discussion about why HTML5 is important, and then some tips on getting started using Visual Studio.
	Friday! Friday! Friday! Microsoft Company Meeting 2011! (Mini Microsoft) Mini Microsoft has no time for all the 'whiners' within Microsoft, which seems a little ironic given his previous posts. He's happy with what Sinofsky is doing (not a DevDiv employee then?), and gives an excellent appraisal of the good, the bad and the ugly at Microsoft right now. Clearly not a DevDiv employee then!
	How the IT Landscape Changed During Build 2011 (Tim Anderson) Tim thinks that Build was not just 'pivotal' for Microsoft, but for the whole IT industry. Tim tells it like it is, so I'm starting to wonder just what it was Microsoft were putting in the water at Anaheim this year!
	The Closest I Got to Windows on ARM at Microsoft PDC (Tim Anderson) The precise story on whether ARM really is going to be Metro only still isn't clear and at Build 2011 it was very much a "look but don't touch" policy for the ARM device on display. Tim shares his experience of what he was shown but not allowed to touch.
	Microsoft's Next Move: Split Metro and Classic Mode in Windows 8? (Bill Simser) Bill's not fooled by Microsoft's writing of a new OS that they're pretending is just part of an existing one and speculates as to what will happen next.
	What is Wrong with Windows Software and Why Windows 8 Doesn't Solve A Thing: Part 1 - Finding, Downloading and Installing Software (Patrick Klug) Things may be cosy in Metro land. But if you're developing for Windows 8 Desktop things are still pretty broken.
	Windows 8: A Deep Dive into the Developer Preview (PC World Magazine) Not so much a 'deep dive' as a 3-page 'first looks'. The verdict: this is a 'transitional' operating system.
	The Windows 8 Mullet (Leon Bambrick, SecretGeek) Leon's got Windows 8 Desktop vs Metro modes sussed. It's basically a mullet: business out the front, party out the back.
	Reaction to Yesterday's 'Must Read' post (The Great Unwashed Public) If you ever needed proof that most of the public are blind, unthinking, mindless sheep, the evidence is all here, as people react to Scott Barnes post on 'Silverlight was Destined to Fail and My Time with Microsoft' which was my only 'Must Read' post yesterday. It's the internet equivalent of that Frankenstein movie scene where the villagers all go to burn the monster. I'm suddenly starting to understand why Microsoft are as successful as they are!
	Windows 8 In-Depth Part 4: The Task Manager (Life Hacker) In the title it says 'in depth'. In the opening paragraph it says it's 'a tour'. I think you can guess which one is the correct description (clue: it's not the title!)

Today's "Technical" Links

	The MVVM Dashboard (Oscar Agenda) A nice screenshot, and bullet points explaining the nested hierarchies of this medical application which uses the MVVM pattern with Silverlight 4, WCF RIA Services and Entity Framework 4. There's an annotated (silent) video walkthrough of the application and the source code's available on Codeplex. Nice one!
	Cool Four Windows 8 Metro Themes Available for Download (Michael Crump) I'm not sure when 'changing the background color' became 'downloading a theme', but if you're sick of the green background on your default Metro environment these 'theme's let you change the background to yellow, purple, black, light blue or dark blue. Errrm... I make that FIVE themes not four! ?!?!

Today's "Fun Stuff" Links

Draw StickMan This went viral yesterday, and it's not hard to see why. Tempted to ask the same question Mike Taulty asked on his Twitter feed yesterday: 'Is this really just HTML5?' I mean, really? It is? Oh shit!

Fast and fluid News

Don't forget that all the latest Windows 8 Metro links are posted in 'real time' on the Fast and fluid Twitter account.
The Fast and Fluid Podcast, covering all things Windows 8 related, will be launched later this month.