HTML5 Semantics: you too can be a bedwetting antfucker

A session at Fronteers 2011

With all the whizzbangs of canvas and multimedia, the Ooh!s of the History API and the Aah!s of Appcache, the 30 new elements in HTML5 are often overlooked by developers coming to terms with what's new in the HTML Hood.

But semantics aren't the boring old comfortable cardigan in your developer wardrobe - they're the studded leather codpiece around which the rest of your Mighty HTML Warrior's armour is built.

We'll look at how the new HTML elements came about, note problems with their current specifications, then wonder whether those problems are actually features rather than bugs. We'll also consider the WHATWG's penchant for "teleological semantics" and, back in cardigan mode, propose a middle ground.

There will be no Turkish dancing videos.

About the speaker

This person is speaking at this event.

Bruce Lawson

Opera employee (tweets are personal, not Opera); co-author of Introducing HTML5; web standards lovegod. Guinness-drinking, kickboxing poetry freak. Man with MS. bio from Twitter