Comments on: HTML or XHTML: A purist’s dilemma

By: The Morning-ish Post » Blog Archive » HTML versus XHTML - the battle rages

Thu, 11 May 2006 03:24:50 +0000

[...] Further reading: What is XHTML anyway? http://www.alistapart.com/articles/xhtml/ That’s not XHTML, that’s tag soup IE7 blog post on XHTML and MIME type Anne van Kesteren has written a lot about this topic [...]

By: Ara

Ara — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:48:21 +0000

Bart: Yeah, but without rigorous validation in your development process, you can still get away with aweful markup in XHTML. Unless you deliver the document in application/xhtml+XML, nobody’s holding you accountable. However, if you do deliver it in application/xhtml+XML then the page will crash, thus, you’re held (severely) accountable for sloppy code.

It’s not that I don’t agree with you. XHTML (the spec) demands stricter markup, however, without anyone making sure you stick to those rules, you may as well be writing plain ol’ HTML.

Having said that, HTML also requires that you follow at least some rules, and even those can be broken (and routinely are) by sloppy developers. I honestly think that in the end, the quality of a page’s markup relies more on the quality of the skills of the person who’s doing the marking up, rather than the spec they’re supposed to follow.

By: bart

bart — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:37:17 +0000

I completely agree with Molly.

The reason for XHTML being better in team environments is that everyone uses the same coding conventions because of the strict syntax rules. With HTML, some people may quote numeric attributes some may not and others may replace them with CSS.

By: Ara

Ara — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 21:55:44 +0000

Tilde: I realize that now. But through this whole experience I’ve come to the conclusion that I want my site to be a place that I can mess around with different techs that appeal to my obsessive compulsive side. I also misunderstood the W3C’s ”forbidden closing tag” statement to mean that you couldn’t self close <img> and <br> when really they literally meant no closing tags, i.e.: <br></br>

By: Tilde

Tilde — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 21:45:55 +0000

My dilemma is the following: Do I switch to HTML 4.01 and get used to uppercase tags that don’t self-close?

Waaaaiiit, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

HTML can be lowercase, you know. It can also be very well-formed and consistent-looking and all those things that are required by XHTML.

It can even be well structured and semantically sound and well designed, something that is not required by XHTML.

By: mattur

mattur — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 17:53:59 +0000

there are great benefits to using XHTML 1.0 in the here and now. It’s easier to learn (and teach),

Debatable, imho. The rapid uptake of the web suggests HTML has had no particular difficulties being taught or learnt.

it’s great in multi-team environments,

Oh come one, this is pure rubbish! It might work with newbies, but any tech-literate person is going to have trouble with such a ludicrous statement.

and if you ultimately will be tapping into extensibility, you’re documents are more flexible

Agreed - if the only way you can do something is by using XHTML then use it. Otherwise, don’t - you can always automagically transform good HTML to XHTML at a later date, should the requirement ever arise. Sooner or later WASP are going to have to admit this… I’d suggest sooner would be the better option.

By: I’ve converted to application/xhtml+xml | ara pehlivanian—Web Standards, Web Culture, Web Everything.™

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 16:57:43 +0000

[...] So I’ve gone ahead and decided what to do about my dilemma. I’m now serving my pages using the application/xhtml+XML MIME type to compliant browsers and the text/html MIME type to everything else. In order to be able to do this, I installed a wonderful little plugin called WP Content Negotiator written by Admiral Justin. It feels like I just got my first tattoo. It’s a combination of feeling like “wow, I did it!” and “oh boy, I hope I don’t regret this.” [...]

By: Ara

Ara — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:35:34 +0000

XHTML 1.0 can be sent as text/html - that’s according to the specs.

You see, I must have missed that.

…what he’s saying in that email isn’t that XHTML (1.0) can’t be served as text/html but should be treated as HTML…

Okay, but if it’s treated as HTML, then wouldn’t it be tag soup? Or at the very least, broken? Because according to the HTML spec, is forbidden. “Start tag: required, End tag: forbidden“

By: Molly E. Holzschlag

Molly E. Holzschlag — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 12:37:20 +0000

Actually, there are great benefits to using XHTML 1.0 in the here and now. It’s easier to learn (and teach), it’s great in multi-team environments, and if you ultimately will be tapping into extensibility, you’re documents are more flexible.

XHTML 1.0 can be sent as text/html - that’s according to the specs. This was done for backward compatibility. Now, XHTML 1.1 sent as text/html would be tag soup, but XHTML 1.0 sent as text/html is fine.

Anne is one smart guy and I respect him a great deal, but this is an area he and I will never agree on, although HTML 5.0 is pretty intriguing and his work on that impressive. Steven is also one savvy fellow, and what he’s saying in that email isn’t that XHTML (1.0) can’t be served as text/html but should be treated as HTML by browsers rather than XHTML to support the goals of backward compatibility.