There are some very interesting things going on recently in terms of how we put together our sites and it’s leading to quite a few interesting discussions, mostly between those who aren’t ready to even consider using new web technologies until IE offer support for them and those who have whole heartedly embraced the ideas of progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. Personally I fall into the latter category, using HTML5 to code up sites and using CSS3 all over the place.

I’ve been using CSS3 in plenty of places (yes even client projects!) and trying to code in HTML5 where possible, but it occurred to me when putting together some stuff with CSS3 animations for my new project StatShare (open up something webkit and have a little look round for it), especially after making a mess of various things and trying out new ideas, it isn’t about getting it right. In the end I did get what I wanted done, and I’m pleased with that, but even if I hadn’t I would have learned plenty more about CSS3 anyway, things that I can take on with me future projects.

As CSS3 isn’t a finished draft either if in my experiments I find that things don’t work as I expect, well then I can write about it, see if other people have similar problems even submit a bug report to the W3 if I want to go that far. Essentially we are the test bed for this new stuff and it’s only by trying new things that we’ll learn how it works and what the limits are.

It’s about learning and testing and helping to move the web forward to better and easier coding methods and techniques, so what if what you try doesn’t work, at least you’ll learn something and you’ll be a few steps ahead of those who aren’t using new coding methods.