Category Archives: Java

It will still be a few years (two? four?) before browsers have fully integrated the whole HTML 5 standard, but many of the new features are available today. In fact, four of the five leading browsers (Firefox, Opera, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome) have integrated some next-gen features. Microsoft promised strong support in Internet Explorer 8, but most reviewers were underwhelmed when IE8 was released, suggesting users will have to wait for IE9. Still, with obvious commitment from all browser builders, HTML 5 is definitely on the way to becoming the new face of the Web.

Around the turn of the last century (and millennium), XML was still a promising technology with a small niche and growing interest. About midway through the first decade of the new millennium (and century), it was really exploding in use, and needed no further justifications as a good idea. In fact, the question changed from, “Why use XML?” to “Why not?” pretty quickly. XML became the format of choice for such diverse fields as stock trading, graphic arts and Web development. Far more tools and protocols work with XML than do not, and knowing what XML is and does is now one more checkbox for the computer literate.