[WEB4LIB] Re: to X or not to X

[Justin Rounds]

Let me also point out that the very page that you are referring to is in 
fact valid XHTML -- and strict 1.0 no less!

Not to mention the prominent "CSS Sucks" graphic on a page that is in 
fact judiciously using CSS.

IMHO "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", so if your site works fine as 
HTML4.01 by all means leave it be -- but I would recommend any new pages 
be built using XHTML (if only to support the evolution of standards). 
However, if you're determined to recode all your pages then take a look 
at HTML Tidy (http://tidy.sourceforge.net/) which supposedly can convert 
HTML to XHTML automatically.

I'm curious what the real benefits are from moving to Strict from 
Transitional though -- any thoughts/experiences anyone?

BTW, CSS most certainly does not "suck". :)

-------------------------------------------
Justin Rounds
Graphic Design and Digital Media Specialist
Digital Library Development Center
University of Chicago
1100 E. 57th St.
Chicago, Illinois 60637
(773)702-4391
-------------------------------------------


Thomas Dowling wrote:
> Vicki Falkland wrote:
> 
> 
>>hi folks,
>>
>>i've had a lingering thought for a long time now .."one day, when i get
>>time, i'll convert the entire library site from HTML 4.01 Transitional to
>>XHTML 1.0".
>>i thought this was A Good Thing to do. i've done one page so far.
>>
>>however, today i stumbled across a discussion "XHTML is invalid HTML" at
>>http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/06/invalid-html.
>>
>>one commenter suggests it would be better to move from Transitional
>>HTML4.01 to Strict, rather than move to XHTML. i certainly don't understand
>>much of what's contained in the discussion ... "application/xhtml+xml", and
>>character encoding (that one always leaves me staring blankly).
>>
>>i'd value opinions on what would be the best way to go .. should i go to
>>strict, or to XHTML? or doesn't it matter so long as it validates? and what
>>about the one page that already XHTML .. is the bit in my meta tag that
>>says "text/html" wrong, and it's not XHTML afterall??
>>
>> 
>>
> 
> 
> 
> IMO, of course...
> 
> The great leap forward here is from accepting whatever glop your copy of 
> FrontWeaver pumps out, to giving a damn about markup standards at all.  
> By asking this question, you know you're already on the right track.
> 
> Moving from any flavor of HTML to the corresponding flavor of XHTML is a 
> pretty minor syntax change.  The failure of IE to handle XHTML's 
> official MIME content type is a non-negligible issue, but a good server 
> environment should be able to send either "application/xhtml+html" or 
> "text/html" based on the browser's Accept headers.
> 
> Moving from either Transitional version to the corresponding Strict 
> version is where you really get the benefits from distilling your markup 
> down to clean structure.
> 
> Again IMO,  there's little advantage to moving from HTML to XHTML unless 
> you either need to use other XML applications or editors, or you just 
> want to play with XHTML. 
> 
>