html 4 vs xhtml ?

when I recently asked for a critique of my site two different people
mentioned that they thought I would be better to concentrate on html 4
instead of writing xhtml..

this really surprised me.. as my reading had led me to understand that
there will be no html 5, and that xhtml is the future of markup.

Since I was just learning I thought I might as well learn facing
forward, rather than learning something and then having to relearn when
everyone is switching to xhtml. It is a bit more picky.. but once you
get used to it, its not difficult..

I'd be interested in some more opinions about this.. is there something
about the politics of it all that I don't know?? or just one of those
ymmv things..

Helen

In article <12628fc2q74g95a (AT) corp (DOT) supernews.com>,
Helen Martin <hrmartin (AT) nospam (DOT) uniserve.com> wrote:

I'd be interested in some more opinions about this.. is there something
about the politics of it all that I don't know?? or just one of those
ymmv things..

As of now, properly written strict HTML can simply be run through Tidy
to create proper XHTML. And vice-versa. So what's the point?
Perhaps XHTML will mean more someday, but it means little now. Lots of
new paradigms are thrown at the wall and cause froth for a while. Then
they quietly unstick and fall to the floor in an ever increasing pile of
dead ideas. In the end, significant browser support makes or breaks the
'web language of the future'.
Of course, YMMV ;-)

leo

--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/>

Helen Martin wrote:

when I recently asked for a critique of my site two different people
mentioned that they thought I would be better to concentrate on html 4
instead of writing xhtml..

this really surprised me.. as my reading had led me to understand
that there will be no html 5, and that xhtml is the future of markup.

Since I was just learning I thought I might as well learn facing
forward, rather than learning something and then having to relearn
when everyone is switching to xhtml. It is a bit more picky.. but
once you get used to it, its not difficult..

I'd be interested in some more opinions about this.. is there
something about the politics of it all that I don't know?? or just
one of those ymmv things..

Have a look at this Helen:

http://www.spartanicus.utvinternet.ie/no-xhtml.htm

Helen Martin wrote:

this really surprised me.. as my reading had led me to understand that
there will be no html 5, and that xhtml is the future of markup.

The future of markup might be XHTML, but it probably won't be XHTML 1.x, and
the present of markup is HTML.

It is a bit more picky.. but once you get used to it, its not difficult..

Then why do people seem to have so much trouble following Appendix C?

I'd be interested in some more opinions about this.. is there something
about the politics of it all that I don't know?? or just one of those
ymmv things..

Plenty of discussion in the archives of this group, the problems come down
to client support and people's inability to write XHTML properly.


--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is