HTML5, for web developers

Today marks a very special day — I’m proud to announce the official launch of the WHATWG HTML5 specification for web developers.

It features find-as-you-type search, offline access, beautiful typography, technical references pulled inline, and alternate styles for handheld devices or low resolution displays.

The aim? To produce a companion specification for web developers to use on a regular basis. All details that are considered “for browser vendors” are omitted.

Back in March 2010 I started a now rather well documented project to restyle all of the W3C’s specification pages, to make them more readable.

This project was moderately successful, I presented and launched the results with Mike™ Smith at Web directions south.

Time passed, and a lot of things happened, but in January 2011, I started logging to IRC—basically, to become a part of the web standards community.

Within 10 minutes of joining the WHATWG IRC channel (Read the transcript) Ian Hickson had granted me approval to continue with my own build of the spec, targeted for web developers.

In closing

Last week I wrote about participating actively in web standards. What you see above is the result of my participation with the WHATWG and W3C. As this project draws towards the end, I look forward to working with the amazing people who helped along the way—

Anthony Kolber (the other 50% of AB+C) Paul Irish, Ian Hickson, Jonathan Neal, Michael™ Smith, Oli Studholme, Bruce Lawson, Divya Manian, Lincoln Stoll & Dion Almaer, all—Thank you.