The day after the W3C unveiled the HTML5 logo, the WHATWG announced that HTML is the new HTML5 and that they will stop using version numbers for their HTML specification.
The main reason for this seems, according to the WHATWG FAQ, to be a desire to fix bugs in the specification and add new features as soon as possible, instead of having to wait for the next version.
That sounds sensible. Fixing bugs and omissions sooner rather than later is good, right? In general it is, of course. However I think it may be a bit problematic in the real world for people who author (“author� is spec writer lingo for front-end developer) websites and want to follow specifications, i.e. validate their markup and have it stay valid according to the rules that were known at the time.
Posted in HTML 5, Web Standards.