I'm a software developer and most of the stuff I work on is web-related. But I've done primarily server-side work, and I've been put off doing more client-side development due to the poor programming model in web browsers. As The Register once put it, In Web 2.0, we are able to create a Rich Internet Application, and give the user the experience he deserves. Careful observers may notice, however, that the programming model has lost some of its former coherence. I read this book in the hope it would convince me the browser is ready for prime time development, or at least close enough that it's now worth investing significant time to learn about.

For my purposes, then, Introducing HTML5 has been a worthwhile read. It covers not only HTML5 (new, semantic, markup, forms, audio and video, data storage, offline support, canvas etc), but also some related technologies, such as CSS3, SVG, geolocation, web workers and web sockets. Actually I'm still a little hazy on what's inside the HTML5 spec and what's out - it is described, but the book is basically a summary of the important bits of HTML5 plus a few related (new, trendy) technologies.

The authors specifically state that the book is not complete, but it does contain a wealth of advice from practical experience using HTML5 technologies. I read the second edition, which is up-to-date as of some time 2011, but it's notable that they talk about Chrome 12, when I'm writing this review in Chrome 16 already.

The book has quite a lot of code snippets, but it's not a programming manual. Other reviewers have complained about the amount of code. If all you know is HTML markup and CSS, the code may frequently be useless to you. On the other hand, this book doesn't feel like a suitably detailed reference for heavy development.

After I'd read this I came away with the feeling I'd read the world's longest introductory HTML5 blog post. And that's it's strength and weakness. If you'd like an easy to read, whirlwind tour of (almost) the latest web technologies and their associated gotchas, this book is great. If you need more detailed, rigorous documentation, this is not the book you are looking for. For me, it answered my question: HTML5 is not ready for prime time, but it is close enough I should start learning more right away.