Re: HTML vs XHTML

[David Paleino]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Victor Engmark ha scritto:
> On 2/25/07, *Davi Leal* <address@hidden <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
> 
>     gnu.org <http://gnu.org>   uses    XHTML 1.0 Strict
>     fsf.org <http://fsf.org>   uses    XHTML 1.0 Transitional  (Plone)
>     fsfe.org <http://fsfe.org>  uses    XHTML 1.0 Transitional  (eZ
>     Publish)
> 
>     IE6 does not support application/xhtml+xml  in fact it does not
>     support XHTML at all. XHTML is planned for IE8.

Stupid Microsoft crap. *lol*

>     fsf.org <http://fsf.org> "works" on IE6 because of they send XHTML
>     with a content-type of "text/html".  Sending XHTML that way means
>     you get none of the XML-related benefits due to browsers use the
>     HTML parser -- It is written with XHTML but actually working as
>     HTML.

In this case, it's true that there is no "benefit" at all, if we only
consider the user experience.
If we consider the developing work, it's easier writing XHTML than HTML
(imho). That's why XHTML has stricter rules, and, moreover, enforces
accessibility requiring, for example, the alt attribute on <img>'s.
(that's also one of the PROs Victor listed).

>     Sending a content-type of application/xhtml+xml means that 80% of
>     todays browsers will prompt you to download the document instead
>     of attempting to render it.  It does not look like the browser
>     market can handle application/xhtml+xml yet.

That's weird.
If this is true, I'm ok we should cancel the task, and wait for "better
times".
In any case... my (and everyone else's, lol) Firefox seems like can
handle the application/xhtml+xml content-type. So, as usual, IE blocks
our way with its non-standard behaviour. Again, crappy Microsoft
software, *lol*.

>     XHTML 1.0 and 1.1 do not provide benefits. So, I propose stay
>     with HTML 4.01 Transitional and cancel the XHTML tasks. David,
>     what do you think?.
>     It seems it would be a lot of work to no benefit.

I'm ok with cancelling the task.
GNUHerds.org is not strictly related to *nix world (which, I believe, is
as standard-compliant as possible), so I think we should grant
accessibility also to Windows/Mac users using IE.

> So there's three major open source organizations which use XHTML, but
> none of them know what they're doing, because "XHTML 1.0 and 1.1 do not
> provide benefits"?

Victor, the fact is not that "none of them know what they're doing".
It's true that they all set the content-type to "text/html". I believe
that is for backwards compatibility.

> There are many other arguments for and against XHTML
> on other sites:
> 
> [ pros and againsts XHTML ]

I'll read them.
But, I'd like to say, we should be accessible to all. Ok, for that we
follow standards... but if there's some browser (we know which :-P)
which doesn't respect them... shouldn't we consider it?
The best thing to do would be detecting, with an intro page, or kinda,
the browser type. Then, we can choose whether to send text/html or
application/xhtml+xml.

Besides all the "theorical" questions, I've had some problems. In fact,
there are some HTML attributes which do not exist in XHTML. For some, I
just used CSS, but for others, I couldn't find a valid substitute.
That's why some pages are, actually, hybrid HTML/XHTML. :-(

Cheers,
David

- --
         Linux Registered User #334216
Get FireFox! >> http://snipurl.com/gofoxygo/ <<
Blog         >>  http://www.hanskalabs.net/  <<
Staff        >> http://www.debianizzati.org/ <<
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF4ZPz5qqQFxOSsXQRAjt6AJ9Z27HLMHcQhLXNG3Ad402p1bv0UQCdGLVn
Vm4UPZqXY6ImHcMuW+y8JQo=
=/DQo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----