We tend to discuss things that are easy to talk about.
AJAX (as it was at the time) is a prime example of what Dan's talking about, I think. As a term that enveloped the whole idea of having JavaScript dynamically load content from a server, it really brought developers together in discussing and experimenting, and even resulted in naming a publication on the topic (Ajaxian). Did it matter that almost no-one was really fetching XML (the X in AJAX)? No.
"HTML5" played a similar role for a bunch of technologies 7-8 years ago, even including technologies that were nothing to do with the HTML5 spec (such as WebGL). Or DHTML 15-18 years ago.
We now see something similar with "serverless" which a lot of people criticize as a pointless term except it is bringing together discussion around a group of related concepts and is valuable in that role alone.
Other such terms that are ultimately ambiguous under close scrutiny but which allow discussion and communities to organize around them: IaaS, SaaS, NoSQL, devops..
Ajaxian - I can remember that. For a while it was a must read. Like 'Byte' in a generation before or 'Scientific American' a generation before that, 'Ajaxian' enabled you to learn about the future in a way where you felt quite privileged to be in on the story.
HTML5 also came with some publications that made you feel inspired. HTML5Rocks existed once. HTML5Doctor limps on with no content and someone paying the hosting much like Ajaxian does.
As per the model railway example given in this thread these are the leftovers from the original geeks that created the scene.
HTML5 became all about how you could embed video without a Flash player. The geeks thought it was all about semantic markup. But for the people that see words as just shapes on a page the 'video without Flash' bit was all they could relate to.
Absolutely nobody apart from a few HN people are using HTML5. That is no exaggeration. Go to any of those billion dollar web companies, check out the code and it is just Div Soup.
Go onto Wordpress. It is all Div Soup. There are no themes that use HTML5 beyond chucking in a 'header' and 'footer' tag here and there. Yet a third of the web is supposed to be powered by Wordpress.
Go onto a website builder service like Wix. Same story, yet more Div Soup.
We never got the XML bit of AJAX. It ended up 'AJAJ' if anything as it is just some JSON object that is what gets worked with.
With HTML5 we never got the semantic elements apart from the 'video' one. We got rounded buttons from CSS3 though.
I think the whole semantic thing was a mistake. The likes of Google have AI robots that can see pages and work out what is going on. So if you have a visually well designed page their robot is fine with that. Unless you are writing a page for the government's site on special needs then to hell with accessibility. That is how it seems.
The geeks that enthused about semantic HTML5 elements left the party a long time ago. The people who think HTML5 means you don't need flash took over and thought that was all there was to it.
The denial is an important thing though. People can keep working as they were before but believe they have new skills, adapted and changed.
AJAX (as it was at the time) is a prime example of what Dan's talking about, I think. As a term that enveloped the whole idea of having JavaScript dynamically load content from a server, it really brought developers together in discussing and experimenting, and even resulted in naming a publication on the topic (Ajaxian). Did it matter that almost no-one was really fetching XML (the X in AJAX)? No.
"HTML5" played a similar role for a bunch of technologies 7-8 years ago, even including technologies that were nothing to do with the HTML5 spec (such as WebGL). Or DHTML 15-18 years ago.
We now see something similar with "serverless" which a lot of people criticize as a pointless term except it is bringing together discussion around a group of related concepts and is valuable in that role alone.
Other such terms that are ultimately ambiguous under close scrutiny but which allow discussion and communities to organize around them: IaaS, SaaS, NoSQL, devops..