HTML versions

Since its creation, there have of course been several different versions and flavors of HTML. The most notable are HTML4, XHTML, and HTML5:

• HTML4: This is the last of a series of versions of HTML and is what most people will implicitly refer to when they talk about HTML.
• XHTML: This is a different definition of HTML and an attempt to make HTML a member of the XML family, giving it more strict rules. An advantage is that it would be easier to use tools and languages that are intended to manipulate and translate XML documents. However, interest in maintaining that standard seems to have faded.
• HTML5: This is the newest kid on the proverbial HTML block. A lot of books have been published about it and, if you have read one of them, you will have discovered that HTML5 is more than just a new version of the markup language. Granted, it comes with quite a few new tags, such as the <nav> or <section> tags. HTML5 also features the use of custom data attributes such as data-whateveryouchoose that you can use in your document. Later on you can manipulate these using JavaScript. It is a way to pass data along inside an element; hence the name chosen: data-*.

Did I say JavaScript? All the other new features in HTML5 are actually JavaScript APIs like HTML5 Canvas. Canvas lets you draw things on your web page, pie charts for example. Exciting as these APIs may be, they are beyond the scope of this chapter.