HTML5 and CSS3 have just arrived (kinda), and with them a whole new battle for the ‘best markup’ trophy has begun. Truth to be told, all these technologies are mere tools waiting for a skilled developer to work on the right project. As developers we shouldn’t get into pointless discussions of which markup is the best. They all lead to nowhere. Rather, we must get a brand new ideology and modify our coding habits to keep the web accessible.

While it is true HTML5 and CSS3 are both a work in progress and is going to stay that way for some time, there’s no reason not to start using it right now. After all, time’s proven that implementation of unfinished specifications does work and can be easily mistaken by a complete W3C recommendation. That’s wereProgressive Enhancement and Graceful Degradation come into play.

CSS3 is probably the hottest trend in web design right now, allowing developers the opportunity to implement a number of solutions into their projects with some very straightforward CSS while avoiding having to resort to nonsemantic markup, extra images, and complex JavaScript. Unfortunately, it’s not a surprise that Internet Explorer, even in its most recent version, still does not support the majority of the properties and features introduced in CSS3.

Experienced developers understand that CSS3 can be added to new projects with progressive enhancement in mind. This ensures that content is accessible while non-supportive browsers fall back to a less-enhanced experience for the user.