From C/Net News

Is HTML5, the next version of the standard used to describe Web pages, ready for real-world use now or isn't it?

One of its biggest allies, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that's working hard to create the standard, thinks not. But Facebook, one of the world's most popular Web sites, begs to differ. Indeed, on Tuesday, David Recordon, Facebook's senior open programs manager, published a description of how Facebook is using HTML5 right now.

The ruckus began with an InfoWorld interview last week. In it, Philippe Le Hegaret, who oversees HTML5 standardization, was quoted as saying, "The problem we're facing right now is there is already a lot of excitement for HTML5, but it's a little too early to deploy it because we're running into interoperability issues." In other words, what a programmer writes won't show up the same on different browsers.

Le Hegaret's words triggered derision from some quarters. HTML5 book co-author Remy Sharp ranted about Le Hegaret's position, and Palm director of developer relations Dion Almaer added, "I utterly disagree with Philippe, and instead implore you to think about what your site or app can be in 2010 with the new capabilities."

Le Hegaret stuck to his guns. "It's fine to experiment with HTML5 and existing implementations, but don't expect stability," he told Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's vice president engineering, on Twitter." And to Brad Neuberg, a former Google Web programmer who plans to launch a start-up basing products on HTML5, he had this response: "There are interop issues with HTML5 and recommend to use hacks isn't the right approach."

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