I am part of another group and have recently been getting alot of mixed comments on the benefits of using XHTML over HTML 4.01. I think the majority of the people in here are world class so I ask you all.
One of the people in the group just referenced the following document online.
http://www.webdevout.net/articles/beware-of-xhtml
as well as http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/166
If that document is written by Tim B Lee it would warrent validity. I am already aware of the isues with application/xhtml+xml . However, Does that mean that because IE doens't support that type that people should not write in XHTML at all the way the article indicates?
I spend several hours a day learning and practicing the current standards and finding ways to make them work for me. Am I just waisting my time and effort?
All the documentation I have seen uses the term XHTML was intended to supercede HTML. The definition of supercede is to replace.
Thank you Tyssen. From reading that Sitepoint article it seems that there is very few instances when a person should be using XHTML at all. It also indicates that XHML Strict is the only way to go in the cases when you want to use XHTML. Makes me wonder why they even have XHTML transitional in the first place. For that matter why they even released it as a standard when such a large percentage of the browsers in use (IE) will only ignore the Doctype and render it as HTML anyway.
I am also concerned with the abuility of XHTML to do DOM Scripting as well. I say this because that artical indicates you cannot use the document.write functions of JavaScript in XHTML.
Kevin Lennon Lake Area Webs http://www.lakeareawebs.com
I've read a lot of threads regarding HTML vs. XHTML and have come to the conclusion that reverting back to HTML with an HTML DOCTYPE is more relevant for most of my web design projects.
I did stumble upon an article by Jeffrey Zeldman at http://alistapart.com/articles/betterliving/ praising XHTML as the new way to code web pages. After reading this, I was more confused than ever.
Xhtml will never replace Html, just like Linux will never Replace Windows because its universal and after reading this sitepoint thread i still dont see any true needs to use xhtml..
Personally, I build my structure in XHTML, primarily because I'm most familiar with XML. XHTML forces me (and my coworkers) to produce a better, more obvious structure with every tag being closed, every attribute being formatted identically, every tag in lower case.
I use transitional for most projects, and I do _not_ serve my XHTML with the correct content-type, both for compatibility reasons.
I see barely any good reason to use HTML 4 at all anymore. XHTML 1.1 Transitional gives my less code-oriented coworkers some HTML familiarity, while enforcing a better, XML-based structure.