HTML5 Shiv
I've had this blog for quite some time, but have never updated. I suppose one will go to great lengths to save domains. I thought, instead, of using this to follow my progressions in learning everything that is web and keep up my Journalism/Communications major that is now covered in cob-webs and passed daydreams of impacting lives with beautifully constructed syllables.
Today's focus will lean towards HTML5 Shiv.
From my readings, HTML5 Shiv was created not too long ago (in a galaxy not too far away.. just right outside our windows in this case) by a Mr. Sjoerd Visscher for IE6-8. Bless the individuals who have not adjusted their IE browsers to 10. Quirks mode can be an interesting ride.
Essentially, HTML5Shiv (a fun play off of Shim). PS the difference, according to Wikipedia:
While some people refer to it as "HTML5Shim" with respect to shim, there is no real difference between the names and as noted in the code repository, the only difference is that "one has an m and one has a v - that's it."
With older versions of IE, and the continuously growing epidemic of HTML5, it was becoming more apparent to many users and open-sourced creators still trapped within the realms of IE (and wanting to code better web) that these genius semantic mark-ups were falling onto rendered deaf ears.
By happenstance, or perhaps it was pure GENIUS, Mr. Visscher coined up the string:
document.createElement(elementName);
Devs from all over the vast land of the Interwebz stood (or sat up a little straighter) in rejoice and I'm sure many made this face: O _ O as they realized the true power of this shim.
I think Mr. Paul Irish's article phrased it best for this manipulation:
Ian Hickson, lead editor of the HTML5 spec, stood surprised, along the rest of the web, that he had never heard this trick before and was happy to report: “This piece of information makes building an HTML5 compatibility shim for IE7 far easier than had previously been assumed.”
Today, baby developers, such as myself, use this structure without even realizing it within the head of our HTML mark-up when creating for cross-broswer functionality:
<!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/html5shiv/r29/html5.min.js"></script> <![endif]-->
I hope this small read has helped those random individuals who have stumbled upon this when trying to hashtag search HTML5Shiv.. although, I don't know why you would do that within the realms of Tumblr.. Kittens! loveIsLove! reactionGifs! Now go enjoy some Vitamin D for me.
- S
