To HTML 5 or not to HTML 5, that is the question

[Hugene]

Starting a new site, and I was wondering if I should stick to loose HTML 4.1 (my favorite tag soup) or hop on the yet small train and start fresh with HTML 5?

What are your opinions? I read a little bit some older posts and people seem to favor sticking to HTML 4.1.

My concerns with HTML 5 are:

1) Will older browser display it OK (assuming I won't use any new tags, which I wont)?
2) Will browsers in Mobile Devices display it OK?

[timster]

But isn't HTML 5 still at draft stage? There is absolutely no way I'll use it until W3C publish a formal recommendation

You may be waiting a very long time. The spec may not be officially finalized until 2022, after countless committee meetings. The browsers will most likely have implemented everything a long time before that.

[albo]

@timster I agree - The W3C will get around to HTML5/CSS3 about 10 minutes after Congress decides how the FCC should handle net neutrality and about 5 minutes after I pay off the national debt with the interest earned on my $20 savings account... Meetings, schmeetings.

[Hugene]

I think I've been sold, I will use HTML 5. I won't be needing <video> or <canvas> or any of that anytime soon (if ever). The single selling point for me is to stay on top of new hardware development (smart phones, tablets) and to (hopefully) make my sites easier to develop and to maintain. I will view the extra semantics as help for my own personal organizing of the page, even though I know that machines reading the code will benefit from the extra info even more. As for microformats, not sold on that yet.

[UserFriendly]

I'm with sullen on this one. If it's in draft, don't touch it.

A standard that hasn't been agreed is called a Microsoft "feature".