While the other people who were questioned managed to keep it nice and concise, I managed to write up a whole bucket load of words about it. As others asked me why I made sure Bite Size Standards is HTML 4, I’ve decided to post my answer here too.

As published on Elementary Group Standards:

“I’ve used xHTML for 5 years, from 2001 til 2006. My original reason for using it was that it is supposed to be the future. It would have benefits like in-line SVG and MathML. It was presented as TheThingToUse™ with CSS.

There are two things about xHTML which make it a poor choice for (public) sites. Both of them have to do with xHTML’s mime-types. In short, xHTML can be sent with text/html or application/xhtml+xml as the mime-type. On the web xHTML is usually sent as text/html, as Internet Explorer (which has 83+% market share) doesn’t support the other mime-type. Both mime-types are valid for xHTML 1.0, but (supporting) browsers do handle them differently.

It’s the handling of the same code differently where xHTML’s problem lies. When xHTML 1.0 is sent as text/html, it is handled as HTML. This means that it has zero user benefits over HTML 4.01.

When sent as application/xhtml+xml, you could use MathML — but — the browsers will also apply draconian error handling. This way users visiting the site will be punished (by not being able to see the site) for mistakes by the creator (which could be the developer, the CMS, the person updating the text or indeed the user her/himself just writing something). Simple things like a misplaced “&” on a page (instead of “&”) will completely shut off a page from its users.

So not only are there no benefits over HTML 4.01 because you have to send Internet Explorer text/html — you do get user-punishing error handling from other browsers if you decide to send to them the application/xhtml+xml mimetype.

No benefits but increased headaches? Mwa, count me out.

Some people might say ‘but xHTML is the future!’ This may well be, but is of little consequence. The future versions of xHTML (1.1 and 2.0) are not backwards compatible with xHTML 1.0, so writing xHTML now gains you little in the future. Furthermore HTML 5 is coming. Who says that can’t be the future?

My recommendations for writing HTML? Use the doctype ‘HTML 4.01 Strict’ and write your code as xHTML compatible as possible. This means self-closing tags in the body, but not in the head.*

*Little known fact: It’s actually in the spec that you’re not allowed to self-close the meta or link tags. Quite silly in practical terms, and I would suggest to the HTML 5 people that they change that¹.

I hope this answers all the questions people have, but if you have any more (or dare to question my arguments!) don’t hesitate to use the comment form accompanying this journal entry.

Why I use HTML (instead of xHTML) originally appeared on Candy by James on 11 September 2006.

Now increase text size. (use ctrl + plus or ctrl + scroll wheel up) Ignoring the fact that most of the text remains at exactly the same size, look what it’s done to the model!

So beware: using tables may cause bodily harm.

Using tables may cause bodily harm originally appeared on Candy by James on 31 January 2006.

A recent example of this is Cameron Moll’s recent article on A List Apart. I must note here that redefining wasn’t really the point of the article, but some (read: quite a lot of) people (mis)took it as such. In this article Cameron talks about re-alignment versus redesign of websites, explaining that an incremental approach to designing an existing site is quite a good thing. You can think of it as evolution versus revolution; the former might seem slower, but it does bring a lot more refinement than the latter.

Good advice right? Well I’d say so, but certain people got hung up on the use of re-align, saying it brought a new word with new buzz, thus creating confusion. People, get over it. New ways of using words to express ones ideas better are being created all the time. It’s the way language works. Just saying that restyling vs. redesign already means redesign vs. re-align is ridiculous. Redesign used to be a broad term, being used for little tweaks as well as full-blown new designs of an existing site. However, as time passed, redesign became synonymous with the full-blown new design of an existing site. The May 1st Reboot and CSS Reboot events have pretty much cemented this into the collective mind of the web (no I’m not going to say blogosphere..yuk!). Ironically, this slagging of re-align only increases it’s exposure as a buzzword so I really feel they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Others have different reasons for calling it harmful.

That same Anne (who I had the pleasure of meeting at the last Happy Clog meeting) mentioned in the a former post that xHTML has quite a number of downsides. As these include forward and backwards compatibility, they’re quite hefty. The upsides however seem to be zilch at present (excepting, maybe, search engine optimisation). HTML, on the other hand, seems to be getting a proper spec, written with the web in mind. I myself have half a mind to change over to HTML 5 once the spec’s finished. Note that this is simply a reconsidered position and has nothing to do with inflammatory dead horses.

Moving on to the curious post on SimpleBits about using ‘CSS patch’ instead of ‘CSS hack’ to get rid of the negative connotation that’s associated with the term ‘hack’ (even though it has noble beginnings, one can’t deny that due to server crackers being known hackers, hack has a negative meaning now). Thus it’s handy to use another term when you’re explaining your hacks to Pointy Haired Bosses. This doesn’t mean that CSS hacks should be endorsed or encouraged, in my eyes it’s still a last resort.

So do I disagree with everything in those twin-posts? Nah, Web 2.0 is just as meaningless as three (or was it four?) years ago. After seeing the OSCON keynote by Dick Hardt on Identity 2.0 I have some hope that server-side client-focussed (i.e. stuff requires nothing extra of the user but does make life easier for them) innovations like Identity 2.0 seems to be get as much attention as the client-side stuff (like remote JavaScript).

That’s another thing. JavaScript has become cool, nay, acceptable again! After the nightmare that was DHTML, we’ve now got a footballing cleansing acronym for ‘cool JavaScript stuff’ called AJAX. (Thanks Adaptive Path!) Even though they saw it as ‘a new approach to web applications’ it seems that everything connected to JavaScript has the tendency to over hype beyond belief. Compared to DHTML (Dynamic HTML) AJAX does have one saving grace. It provides a method of shoving more heavy lifting to the server-side where, in my mind, it belongs (certainly if the mobile web ever takes off).

So are there any buzzwords worth slagging hard? Absolutely.

On the slagging of buzzwords originally appeared on Candy by James on 2 November 2005.