HTML 5; the evolution and future of HTML?

When I first read about HTML5 I was pretty excited, it sounded like the promise of a new era of websites, that it would fix the problems of the past and yet work for the future. However, like Roger Johansson in The evolution and future of HTML, when I realised it wasn’t going to fix the web my interest dwindled and I stopped actively finding out about it – but when something turns up I will read about it after all it looks like at some point we will be moving over to it.

I have to say I was also pretty excited by the features promised in XHTML2 so was saddened to see so little support for it in the major browsers, so much so that it seems dead in the water. Both competing languages have some fantastic enhancements (navigation list and the dialogue element) and it would be great if the XHTML2 and HTML Working Groups could be brought together and a Complete-Unified language be born, or failing that if the overlaps were removed as suggested by Sam Ruby (co-chair of the HTML Working Group)

Ultimately I hope they do something decisive soon… but my hopes are fading and I’m becoming jaded and cynical