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

[Ricky Zhou <ricky zhou gmail com>]

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Alexander Limi wrote:
> To reiterate, we have never, ever had any problems resulting from this,  
> whether it's considered technically "wrong" or not.
To reiterate, it's parsed as invalid HTML, so it's not really XHTML.
Using invalid markup hasn't given anybody problems for years.  Why isn't
that allowed then?  (Note: I don't support using invalid markup or
XHTML)  And why do something that's wrong when there's a completely
correct/valid alternative?

I challenge the XHTML people to address the fact that it is not parsed
as XHTML unless it's sent with the right mimetype.  I don't care if you
think mimetypes are stupid, it's what current browsers go by, and we
can't change this.

As for the "political reasons" that have been brought up, I am in no way
saying that we should "bow down" to Microsoft/IE.  Not just IE, but
almost all browsers interpret XHTML sent as text/html as HTML (see
http://www.w3.org/People/mimasa/test/xhtml/media-types/results).
Honestly, the very act of sending XHTML as HTML is the real "bowing to
IE/Microsoft" part (and yes, this is required for the page to even be
displayed).

Using application/xhtml+xml is pretty much out of the question (since IE
will refuse to show it period), so text/html is forced, and almost no
browsers (this includes Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari) will interpret
it as XHTML.  Therefore, it's not possible to use real XHTML (in the
sense that it is interpreted as XHTML) when it's sent as text/html.
This means that there is no point to sending XHTML, since it will be
read as plain HTML anyway.

There is no way that Microsoft/IE can get away without supporting XHTML
in the future, so don't even bother saying that we need to somehow
encourage them by using it (and telling the browser to interpret it
incorrectly).

Once again, for the people that say "I've seen XHTML sites that have no
IE problems!"  *They're NOT XHTML!*  They are being read as plain old
HTML.

We've already decided to submit to IE's shoddy support by sending XHTML
as text/html.  If we send HTML as text/html, we actually *won't* be
crippling the site just for IE.

Anyway, I refuse to give up on this argument just because people refuse
to address my repeated arguments:
* It's read as HTML, not XHTML!
* Sending it as text/html instead of application/xhtml+xml is the only
action that is bowing to IE (specifically crippling the site's
XHTML-related benefits for IE's sake).

Until somebody can thoroughly kill these points, I see no point to HTML.
 Looking at the course of this thread, people are simply restating the
same points and ignoring my rebuttals (while I've tried to respond to
every single point that's been made against HTML).

Somebody *please* either start moving this debate forward or admit that
those points completely kill the case for XHTML (heh, I wish).

Ricky
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