Jens Oliver Meiert

Yes, You Can Use HTML 5

Published on Jul 8, 2008 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under , . (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

This and 133 other posts are also available as a well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

You can already use HTML 5: Just use <!DOCTYPE html> as your HTML documents’ document type.

This works even though you will not yet benefit from new elements and attributes (except for formerly proprietary things like autocomplete). Neither could you use the XHTML serialization (an incentive to use real HTML, as many authors do unknowingly).

A safe thing to do is the “new” way of specifying the document encoding by using the charset attribute, however, as in <meta charset="utf-8">. (Feel reminded of the HTML 5 version of the infamous best HTML template.) Try it. Do not forget to check the transformation result with the HTML 5 validator.

As an HTML Working Group member who prefers to stay in the background I hope this adds a little to the excitement about HTML 5. Yes, we can! 😊 [I somewhat regret this pop reference.]

About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on March 2, 2026.

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)