Chapter 3: Forms

Bruce Lawson

ONE OF THE problems with HTML 4 forms is that they’re just dumb fields. Validation is required on the server, of course, but you have to duplicate it in the user’s browser with JavaScript to give them the seamless experience they deserve. Given that almost every web page has some kind of form—search, comments, sign-up, and so on—wouldn’t it be great if browsers had built-in validation for some of the most common data types that we collect?

You guessed it: HTML5 forms provide exactly that.