Using and Writing Polyfills for Building Modern Applications

HTML5 is the hot topic these days. Everybody wants to use the cool features and enhance their sites. One stumbling block is the pervasiveness of non-modern browsers that don't support these great new features. So how do you get around this? Through polyfills and shims of course! Thankfully, a lot of very smart people have created specially crafted JavaScript, HTML and CSS that can mimick the funcitionality found in HTML5, CSS3 and ES5 in non-modern browsers.

Contributing ScriptJunkie.com author and awesome developer Addy Osmani has put up a great post that dives into writing cross-browser JavaScript polyfills where he guides you through the ins-and-outs of polyfills and how to get started using them in your web applications.

"In today's post, I'm going to recount my experience of creating a cross-browser polyfill along with the lessons learned along the way. I'll also give you some tips on how you can create your own polyfills and avoid some of the headaches developers often run into when coding them for the first time."

If you're interested in leveraging HTML5 and ES5 today while still supporting non-modern browsers, Addy's post is well-worth the read. You can also check out the article I wrote for .net Magazine on the same topic.