Recently I started work on a new site which I plan to use underscore.js and backbone.js. Starting a site from scratch can be quite a chore, as well as time consuming. To remedy this I decided to take the plunge and give the html5boilerplate project a try, this project is designed to kickstart your html5 site development with a shell containing all of the stuff that you need to begin with.

So why start with html5boilerplate at all? Well the following things come with it:

  • modenizer included and configured for legacy browser support.
  • A cool favicon.ico to eliminate those 404 errors I always get in my logs, as well as apple touch icons.
  • A base project structure with files originised into a nice layout.
  • JQuery bundled in and ready to roll.
  • A great starting point annotated css file with a whole raft of tips and tricks.
  • Sample site compression build scripts in Apache Ant.
  • A nice example of how to load the google analytics script asynchronously.

Even for those maintaining an existing site there are quite a few very handy lessons to learn from this project. Personally I like all the server configuration file examples located at html5-boilerplate-server-configs, this is a very important facet of any site and is often overlooked.

So in summary I have learnt a lot of good lessons while working with this project and I will be merging some of these into my own blog site.