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

[Ricky Zhou <ricky zhou gmail com>]

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Thilo Pfennig wrote:
> The thing is that we not only going to switch a few handcrafted pages
> but a whole template engine, then. You can not use tidy for that. Tidy
> can only show you how the end result should look like. You can only
> use Tidy für static pages. 
First, one of the points of a templating engine is to allow control over
the code.  As for the conversion issue, aside from
http://tidy.sourceforge.net/docs/quickref.html#new-blocklevel-tags
(which would allow Tidy to TAL statements), this could be easily
scripted (ex. a Perl script with a regex or two).  Either way, there's
no denying that this task would be pretty trivial to any competent
scripter.

> And as Plone already seems to use XHTML we will have to translate
> every module not to produce XHTML just to turn all thing backwards as
> soon as we can send the right mime type and XHTML is to be preferred.
As I explained, it's as easy as specifying HTML tidy options or writing
a quick script.  It's always best to adapt to changing support for
standards.  Of course, this is really getting into small practicalities
(you're simply ignoring the correctness of our actions and diverging to
supposed implementation issues now).

> At MoinMoin we have currently started to rewrite some code to produce
> more conform HTML and this is really difficult
> (http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/MoinMoinBugs/Invalid_HTML_4.01). 
> Maybe this is more easy in Plone - I have not looked at the code.
This is irrelevant since it has absolutely nothing to do with the use of
HTML vs. XHTML.

> Yes, you've repeatedly stated that. This is no practical argument at all.
It shows that it's pointless to use XHTML at this point.  You've agreed
that HTML is the best solution for today.  Since I've shown that the
change is efficient and painless, there's no reason not to use HTML.

Also, HTML won't die as soon as people randomly estimate it will:
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/166

I really don't care to discuss formalities, since I've given methods to
avoid the involved problems.  The point is, the most correct way to do
things now is to go with HTML, based on the fact that sending XHTML as
HTML would be worthless to browsers.

Anyway, moving from HTML to XHTML is easy.  The entire process is:
1. Change DOCTYPE
2. Change XML namespace
3. Add self-closing tags
I'll even volunteer to do this, if that's what it takes.

Note: If you didn't notice, I had previously agreed to just bear with
this incorrectness until XHTML is properly supported/implemented and let
this thread die.  However, I will not give up my position on the fact
that HTML is a better solution than XHTML at this point in time.

Ricky
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