Re: [wgo] XHTML1.0 Strict vs HTML 4.01

[Curtis Hovey <sinzui is verizon net>]

On Mon, 2006-12-04 at 19:46 -0500, Ricky Zhou wrote:
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> Christian Rose wrote:
> > On 12/4/06, Ricky Zhou <ricky zhou gmail com> wrote:
> >> * Why doesn't HTML fulfill our requirements?
> >> * why is XHTML better than HTML for this project?
> Awww, will anybody ever try to give a direct answer to these?
> 
> > For all intents and purposes, the mime type issue with XHTML is mostly
> > a non-issue, as already explained by Curtis in this thread. Yes, you
> > can't use all the benefits of XHTML today given IE's crappy support.
> > Is it a reason to avoid XHTML? I believe not.
> More precisely, you can't use *any* of the benefits of XHTML when it is
> sent with the incorrect mimetype and interpreted as tag soup.  What is
> the point of using XHTML if you can't use any of its
> improvements/features?  Valid, well-formed HTML is essentially
> tag-for-tag equivalent to XHTML, and can be easily moved to XHTML when
> the support is there.

Not So XHTML is more accessible to non-browsers. That aids spiders,
search engines, reformers, and accessibility tools for the handicapped.
The development libraries that work with XML/XHTML are preferred over
SGML/HTML.

XHTML is the standard that tools are being built to use, unlike HTML
4.01. XHTML content will last longer than HTML 4.01 content.

> > What he then went on to say surprised me even more: This was one of
> > the most important factors for him being interested in the job,
> > besides the obvious factors of pay, benefits and so on.
> Assuming that the choice of web language makes a large difference in
> developers' impression of a project, many seasoned web developers would
> actually count this as a negative, as it indicates an ignorant/blind
> following of whatever "the newest version" is.  Understanding the
> differences between XHTML/HTML and the support for both, there is no
> earthly reason to abandon HTML at this point.
> 
> > Just as nice logos and artwork may attract some people, and nice well
> > written docs some others, some nice modern standards-supportive code
> > behind the site may make some few visitors more confident that we aim
> > to support modern standards.
> HTML 4 is a perfectly modern standard (it is the latest that actually
> has reasonable support).  Although HTML 4.01 may be 1 month older than
> XHTML 1.0 (on no!), it currently has the best support, and I have not
> yet seen a single reason to forgo it.

BUT if 4.01 was important to Microsoft, they would have done a decent
job implementing it. 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 are not particularly important
to MS, so we should not expect perfection.

Microsoft was a heavy promoter of "graceful degradation" for a good
reason, the developer cannot control what the reader will see.
Developers create OSes and browsers, Users choose screen resolutions and
fonts. Planning and testing are a requirement, not an option. We must
produce pages that meet standards, and work within those standards to
address deficiencies with browsers.

In general, more browsers are adopting the XHTML standard because that
is what the advocacy groups drive us towards, and the tools for
development support. There will be fewer HTML 4 browsers in the future.

I cannot see any benefit for HTML 4.01. Designers and scripters must
still craft CSS and Javascript to address the quirks of our target
browsers. My validation an generation tools favor valid markup over
ambiguous.

> Ricky
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