The W3C did go ahead with XHTML2. And everyone else, most notably the browser makers, realized that with such a broken W3C as would create such a monster, they’d have to make a new spec themselves if they wanted it to be reasonable... whence WHATWG and HTML5.

Years later, XHTML2 abandoned by the world, the W3C decided it no longer wanted to be sidelined, and it begged for the HTML5 spec to be brought back under its purview. So that’s where we are now.

What do you find troubling? Even when XHTML 1.1(?) Was the hype around town I couldn't see the value in using it over traditional HTML 4.

Oh come on, even Zeldman's given it up and recognized that the 'XHTML' he'd been marketing was bullshit and that he'd never actually used XHTML.

I think Microsoft did a great mitzvah with the way they mercifully prevented it from ever actually being used — IE would offer to save it as a file if served as application/xhtml+xml, saving people from the fate of having compliant browsers refuse to render their documents over petty draconian bullshit. That period of about five years when everyone was super hyped about their 'XHTML' while actually using HTML was pretty annoying though.

Don't worry though, you can join the old XHTML fashionistas in trolling about accessibility instead.

You might enjoy http://diveintohtml5.org/past.html

Or you might not.

Why is that?

HTML5 basically takes HTML4 and adds 3 tags: audio, video, canvas. These solve very specific issues, sound, movies, and drawing. HTML5 does not address some larger scoped problems related to HTML -- the biggest being that HTML sucks. It has always sucked, and it needs to go. It needs to be replaced with flexible, programmable XML.

There is much more to HTML5 (or to HTML4 for that matter) than three elements (those are elements, not tags).

You can have your XML with XHTML or HTML5 XML serialization. Oh, but that does not solve the "flexible" part, right? Well, you have to choose there — either flexibility or interoparatibility. HTML5 focuses a lot on the latter.

What do you want? To have any arbitrary element in your markup? Ok, you get your <foobar>barbaz</foobar>. And then what? What should it mean to everyone else beside you? What do you gain by that?

"What do you want? To have any arbitrary element in your markup? Ok, you get your <foobar>barbaz</foobar>"

Yeah I want my own elements that do anything I want, and I'm working on a solution to it. And this project is what led me to the conclusion that beyond adding 3 tags HTML5 really doesn't address any of the bigger issues. I think it's really silly how much hype HTML5 is receiving when it's a patch job at best.

Well, the sooner you have your solution ready, the sooner you will understand that you were solving the wrong problem.

By the way some of the new elements in HTML5 (and there are not three but almost thirty new elements) are in fact supposed to save web developers from the need to invent theri own way to express some common semantics in HTML, e.g. section, artcile, nav, header, footer. There are alos a buch on new API, much richer inputs collection for forms, etc.

Isn't that what we used to call a web browser plugin?