For decades the CAD and Engineering software industry has been dominated by heavy desktop applications on Windows and Unix based systems and software developers for these segments have for the most part looked at web programming and associated technologies with some bemusement as something not worth paying attention to for their needs.
However, the revolutionary idea of cloud computing and mobile programing (to a certain extent) have turned this idea on its head. Now that the computing power on the cloud is available ridiculously easily and cheaply, it would be unwise not to consider offloading at least some of your computing needs (there are a few considerations like technical, legal and financial feasibility but that is a topic for another post) to the cloud.
But where do you start? And what are the technologies involved? The easiest approach to compute on the cloud is to build a Web Application. This typically involves building a web server application and beautiful web clients (like web pages and mobile client applications) that use the web server applications.
So what does HTML5 have to do with all this? HTML5 is a web client technology used by modern web browsers to describe web pages that show on web browsers. It is the latest evolutionary version of the HTML standard.
Why is HTML5 important? One reason is that HTML5 addresses the most important needs of modern web pages. Modern web pages are not just text and images anymore. They contain video, audio, interactive 2D and 3D graphics and aesthetically pleasing user interfaces. Before HTML5, these requirements needed custom browser add-ins like custom ActiveX controls, Flash plugins or some other heavy components created for each browser.
HTML5 mandates that these requirements be supported natively by browsers. HTML5 has tags for video, audio and graphics (canvas) and much more. You will find all the enhancements to HTML5, explained here.
Another reason why HTML5 has gained popularity and momentum is that it is an open standard and its direction is not set by a single organization or company.
One point to note here is that most browsers are not 100% compliant with all of HTML5 specification. The popular browsers Chrome, Firefox and IE have very high level of compliance but it is by no means complete. Browser compliance can be tested using this website.