Paul Bakaus, W3C AC representative for Zynga and creator of jQuery UI, has rubbished so-called 'HTML5 performance issues'.
In a blog post titled 'No, HTML5 does not have a performance issue', Bakaus argued against those within the industry that dismiss the technology because it doesn’t run well in older kit and said this “has to stop”.
According to Bakaus, context should be taken into account when considering the merits of HTML5 and any perceived performance. He noted that, although it’s “accepted that the newest PC games don’t run well on 10-year-old computers or smartphones,” HTML5 “must have a huge performance issue, due to the fact that the crazy game prototype your intern has been building doesn’t run on my three-year old Android phone”.
Bakaus argued certain well-known online services, such as Facebook, can already perform well in an HTML5 environment, and although more demanding projects (such as certain games) won’t work with all current devices, the rapid adoption of hardware should lead developers to “build for the set of devices that people will use [when the product is released], not now”.
By contrast, Mozilla developer evangelist Christian Heilmann recently told .net developers targeting cutting-edge hardware was part of the problem when it comes to how HTML5 is perceived. He said developers were “using tools that have become so good that we don’t feel the pain of our end users”. He suggested developers should instead build for low-spec devices more often because such products could “scale up to infinity”.
