Peter Wayner

To the world at large, computers are scary machines that are impossible to understand, and programmers are the mysterious geniuses who know how to manipulate them even if they are never able to fix yours for whatever reason.

Anyone who has worked with the machines knows that programmers aren't just one undifferentiated group, but a club with a wide variety of subspecies. From those who will go to any length to avoid documentation to those who deploy code like duct tape, refuse to use libraries, or can't help but rewrite their apps in the latest experimental programming language, programmers are a colorful lot -- particularly in their perspectives and habits -- though collectively comrades in code.

HTML5 heralds some nifty new features and the potential for sparking a Web programming paradigm shift, and as everyone who has read the tech press knows, there is nothing like HTML5 for fixing the Internet. Sprinkle some HTML5 into your code, and your websites will be faster and fancier -- it'll make your teeth white, too. But the reality of what HTML5 can do for those seeking native-app performance on the Web falls short of the hype.

After several years of enjoying HTML5's sophisticated new tags and APIs, the time is ripe to admit that there are serious limitations with the model. Not only are there reasons to grouse about HTML5 failing to fulfill our Web nirvana dreams, there are even reasons to steer away from HTML5 in some cases.

If you are among the fading majority, you'll be reading this story in a cavernous desktop browser with screen real estate that goes on and on like the Montana sky. If you're from the future, you're pinching and sliding your fingers over a smartphone screen that seems tiny until you stick it in a belt holster and curse because it's not small enough to fit comfortably in your pocket. The mobile Web browser may not be as easy on the eyes, but hey, you might be reading it while swinging on a hammock over a beautiful beach while drinking fancy beverages.

The vision of a future dominated by smartphones is well understood by everyone, even if it's about as likely to come true as the prediction that mainframes are finished. The desktops may never surrender to the tiny pocket browsers, but it doesn't matter because everyone is ready to fight over who will be the dominant renderer of HTML for the smartphones.

If you are among the fading majority, you'll be reading this story in a cavernous desktop browser with screen real estate that goes on and on like the Montana sky. If you're from the future, you're pinching and sliding your fingers over a smartphone screen that seems tiny until you stick it in a belt holster and curse because it's not small enough to fit comfortably in your pocket. The mobile Web browser may not be as easy on the eyes, but hey, you might be reading it while swinging on a hammock over a beautiful beach while drinking fancy beverages.

The vision of a future dominated by smartphones is well understood by everyone, even if it's about as likely to come true as the prediction that mainframes are finished. The desktops may never surrender to the tiny pocket browsers, but it doesn't matter because everyone is ready to fight over who will be the dominant renderer of HTML for the smartphones.

Stop. Don't look up. Don't look outside of the box, the rectangle holding this text. Can you tell me which browser you're using? Did you choose it yourself for all the right reasons? Can you explain why you're trusting your precious HTML-encoded content to this browser, the way a major league batter can explain why maple or ash and a thin or thick barrel is absolutely the right choice for sending that ball into the bleachers? Are you sure this browser is the best choice for the tags and the metadata hurling toward your computer?

If you can't answer the questions, get out of here. If you think that this highly optimized, just-in-time, infinitely customizable technology is another mere commodity, don't even bother finishing this sentence to look for the insult you know is coming. You're not good enough to read this text. You don't deserve the information.

Artwork: Chip TaylorIt is now just over 12 years since seven people sat down in a conference room in Silicon Valley to fix what they saw as the marketing problem with the words "free software." Most people thought that the word "free" meant only that no one had to pay. It seemed they didn't have an attention span long enough to try to grok what Richard Stallman was saying when he kept repeating, "'free,' as in speech."

After considering dozens of combinations, Christine Peterson hit upon "open source," and the phrase has grown to represent a section of the software marketplace big enough to merit its own end-of-the-year roundup.

The five characters HTML5 are now an established buzzword, found everywhere on the Web and often given top billing in slides, feature lists, and other places where terms du jour congregate. Nonprogrammers who must either manage or work with programmers are even beginning to pick up the term. Just two days ago, someone who can't manage a TV remote explained that he was sure his company's Web presence would be much better because they were using HTML5.

The five characters are in reality just the name of a document that isn't even finished. The W3C, whose job it is to build standard-setting descriptions of Web technology, has been contemplating the fifth version of the HTML standard for almost seven years. The latest HTML5 draft may finally become official in 2022, at least according to Ian Hickson, one of the authors who works for Google.

A car magazine once declared that a car has "character" if it takes 15 minutes to explain its idiosyncrasies before it can be loaned to a friend. By that standard, every piece of software has character -- all too often, right of the box.

Most programming "peculiarities" are unique to a particular context, rendering them highly obscure. Websites that deliver XML data, for example, may not have been coded to tell the browser to expect XML data, causing all functions to fall apart until the correct value fills the field.

In the game of technological one-upmanship, the browser used to be an easy place to win. Most people used Internet Explorer, so it was simple to gain the edge by using Firefox. But now Firefox is common, and even Opera and Google Chrome are losing their cachet. Safari ships standard with every Mac, so everyone, the cool and the uncool, have it by default. They're all excellent browsers, but they're still the status quo. Is there anywhere else to turn for a bit of distinction?

Finding an even more obscure browser is surprisingly straightforward, and it may offer more than just the feeling of superiority that comes from beating the crowds. Many of the alternative browsers exist to solve particular problems, and the new and better features are useful to us. Sometimes it's because we're part of some niche like Facebook, but often it's because our boss wants us to do something with information on the Web and the specialized browser makes it simpler.

Not too long ago the job of a Web browser was simple: Get the text from the Internet and pour it into the window. If a tag like <strong> comes along, change the font. Now the challenges are greater because the browser is becoming the home for almost everything we do. Do you have documents to edit? There's a website for that. Did you miss a television show? There's a website for that. Do you want to announce your engagement? There's a website for that too. The Web browser handles all of that and more.

Choosing a best browser is an impossible job. On one hand, the programs are as close to commodities as there are in the computer industry. The core standards are pretty solid and the job of rendering the document is well understood. Most differences can be smoothed over when the Web designers use cross-platform libraries like jQuery. Many websites look the same in all of the major browsers, a testament to the hard work of the developers and their desire to get their information out to the largest audience.

While it's impossible to sum up the thousands of enhancements and bug fixes both big and small, the Firefox 4 beta version brings the browser that much closer to taking over everything on the desktop. There are fewer reasons for anyone to interact with an extra plug-in or the operating system. Remember when people cared about whether a machine was Windows or Mac or a Commodore 64? Remember when software needed to be written in native code? Those days are fading away quickly as the browser is more able than ever before to deliver most of the content we might want.

Artwork: Chip TaylorYou've no doubt heard about or even seen Firefox 4's new Chrome-like interface. More important are the many new features generally lumped together under the catchall standard HTML5, a specification that's still a draft but has become more of a rallying cry for AJAX, JavaScript, endless tags, and life beyond plug-ins.