Alternatives to Placeholder Text

Andrew Coyle on when to use <input placeholder>:

• Don't use them as a label
• Don't use them as a secondary label
• Don't use them as example input
• Don't use them as helper text

Which amounts to pretty much: "Don't use them". Notice there are no examples of good use cases, and even the examples in the "Do" graphics just say "Placeholder Text", which isn't exactly demonstrative of usefulness.

I wonder if placeholder text will fall completely out of favor.…

Alternatives to Placeholder Text is a post from CSS-Tricks