Slashdot Mirror
Why You Should Use XHTML
Da_Slayer writes "The w3's HTML group has released the 6th public working draft for XHTML 2.0. XHTML 2 is a general-purpose markup language designed for representing documents for a wide range of purposes across the Web. Meaning it is to be used for document structuring which is why it does not have presentation elements. The draft is located at w3's website. Also they have a FAQ about why you should use XHTML over HTML. It goes into specifics about embedding MathML, SVG, etc... and has links to tools and resources to help convert existing html documents to xhtml. One of those resources is a document on XML events and its advantages over the onclick style of event handling."
You have to wonder if Microsoft will be implimenting this new standard in IE. I have done some webdevelopment and have really noticed that they rarely impliment any of the standards in there browser. Not to mention that they are on the board that approves these standards :P
I've been using XHTML for some time, but only in the modes that safely fall back to HTML for browsers that don't "speak" XHTML.
I have to wonder if 2.0 is going to catch on. Internet Explorer isn't likely to support it any time soon, and nobody wants to code two versions of every web application.
Still, good FAQ on that site. I learned some details that had been hazy.
With all the time we spend hearing about alternatives to IE around here, you would think that slashdot would be compliant to at least some W3C standard. If /. were some tiny hobby weblog this would be forgivable, but /. could use the size of it's audience to actually lead. Why not do it?
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Good answer ;-)
The grandparent might also interested in the following:
XHTML is implemented in XML. So XHTML is to XML as OpenOffice.org's writer format is to XML. (Or as HTML is to SGML, or as this post is to English.)
People often say somthing is XML when it is really implemented in XML. Using that (misleading) terminology XHTML is XML.
-Peter
No, that would be very much worse. The whole point of a publically specified XML application like XHTML is that everybody understand what the element types mean. If you go around inventing your own element types, nobody will no what you mean. Google understands <h1> as being more important than normal text. It won't understand <my-fancy-heading> in the same way.
You forget the original purpose of HTML. HTML's purpose, and the reason it grew so quikly, was to be an easily understood markup language that could be used by less technical people. The reason so many people were able to make their own homepages and grow the web like they did was that HTML could be easily learned.
Now we have XHTML and CSS. Neither of these are easy to learn. Neither of them is easy to use. Less technical people are incapable of using either. This is great for job security for webmasters, but for the growtrh of the next and for the internet as a medium of free and easy communication its horrible. XHTML is broken as an HTML replacesment because it does not meet the original purpose of HTML- to be something that anyone can easily learn and use.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I would argue learning XHTML is easier than HTML since the rules are a LOT more straightforward.
There's really not much to it:
Firefox's WebDeveloper extension makes XHTML/CSS validation (among other funcs) so easy that there's no excuse to be lazy about it.
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Power to the Peaceful
Gee, am I the only one who has been writing xhtml in vim for a while now?
It's not that hard to do.
1: add the doctype at the top.
2: always close your tags.
3: check you work with a validator.
html tidy will also identify and clean up any mistakes.
You're kidding right?
First off, Ma and Pa Kettle haven't cranked out their own web page in notepad since about '97 or so. Nowadays they use FrontPage for that which produces something akin to code soup.
Secondly I don't understand why new syntax precludes anyone. Learning new things is not difficult. I write valid XHTML 1 code by hand, it isn't very hard, in fact its much easier to control the elements than it used to be, and produce nice looking sites that downgrade nicely for people using broken (IE) browsers.
It makes everyone's life easier if there is a standard that is followed. You don't expect a programming language to know what to do with invalid syntax do you? Why should your data language be any different?
The Anti-Blog
So you say that website with tables used for design are more easy to read ? Are you sure ?
d io.asp and listen what a blind person can ear when a website use unecessary tables.
:)
Have you ever work on the website of another person, company, project using table for design ? It sis totally impossible to maintain it without losing much time.
Now about the goal of a website, it is not to look good but to provide information. Now if it look beautiful too it is better. But information is the main point and accessibility - I mean information for everybody (blind persons, persons using their mobile phone,...) With tables for design accessibiliy is not possible
Foolow this link http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/chocolateau
Moreover XHTML is more easily readable than XHTML for web-engine. With the separation of content and design you win lot's of bandwidth. Etc.
All my websites now use XHTML and CSS and I am very happy with this. It work perfectly and I win so much time than bfore using tables. I can change the look of all my website by changing one file. Do this with table and without server languages (PHP,ASP,...).
XHTML rox ! CSS rox ! HTML will die slowly