{"id":320,"date":"2009-05-15T16:35:58","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T13:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.optimiced.com\/en\/?p=320"},"modified":"2009-07-03T14:50:46","modified_gmt":"2009-07-03T11:50:46","slug":"xhtml1-html4-html5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.optimiced.com\/en\/2009\/05\/15\/xhtml1-html4-html5\/","title":{"rendered":"XHTML 1.0 vs. HTML 4.01 (or HTML 5)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are a professional Web designer and create HTML\/CSS code by hand for living, then you might be interested in the fact that Dave Shea switched from XHTML 1.0 to HTML 4.01<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s a fact that:<\/p>\n

1) Lately, the HTML 5 standard<\/a> gains up in speed.<\/p>\n

2) XHTML 2.0 probably will never become a successor to XHTML 1.0. In fact, XHTML 2.0 probably will never exist at all<\/em>.<\/p>\n

3) Quite a few prominent Web designers and CSS\/HTML coders are abandoning XHTML 1.0 and go back to HTML 4.01 (some of them even experiment<\/a> very seriously with HTML 5)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What HTML standard for documents do you<\/em> prefer? And am I the only one who (still) prefers XHTML 1.0 over HTML 4.01? :-)<\/p>\n

It followed the interesting discussion at mezzoblue<\/a><\/strong> — I managed to read almost all of the comments there!<\/p>\n

But, sometimes, it is not very clear to me as to where & why are going the Web Standards, guided by W3C<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After HTML 3.2<\/strong>, HTML 4.01<\/strong> came, then the XHTML 1.0<\/strong> standard was adopted, and now HTML 5<\/strong> is developed? There’s almost no logic behind the versioning; plus, we have first the HTML language (which, in turn, derived from SGML<\/a>), then W3C decided that it would be a great idea to combine XML + HTML (and so, XHTML 1.0 was ‘born’), and finally, they turn back to the idea of ‘pure’ HTML, and in the new standard (HTML 5)<\/em>, the ‘X’ is missing…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What’s up next? I don’t know.<\/p>\n

Personally, I am a bit puzzled by the fact that the first standards, which I’ve learned, when I started doing Web design, were HTML 3.2 and HTML 4.01, then came XHTML 1.0 (“The Next Best Thing Since Sliced Bread”, after HTML 4.01) — at this time I had to learn how to close tags, which you don’t have to close at all (such as img<\/code> and br<\/code>, for example)… And now, after XHTML 1.0, it’s HTML’s turn again?<\/p>\n

For now, I don’t plan to change my coding style. XHTML 1.0 Transitional & Strict are doing a great job.<\/p>\n

Besides, using HTML 4.01 has certain drawbacks (compared to XHTML 1.0):<\/p>\n

For example, under HTML 4.01, the closing of some tags is not obligatory at all — <p>, <li><\/code> can be opened, but you don’t have to close them after that, so the following two examples are both valid:<\/p>\n

example 1:<\/em><\/p>\n

<ul>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Lorem<\/a><\/li>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Ipsum<\/a><\/li>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Dolor Sit<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n<p>Lorem ipsum...<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Lorem ipsum!<\/p><\/code><\/pre>\n
example 2:<\/em><\/p>\n
<ul>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Lorem<\/a>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Ipsum<\/a>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Dolor Sit<\/a>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n<p>Lorem ipsum...\r\n\r\n<p>Lorem ipsum!<\/code><\/pre>\n
This could lead to the situation, when the following example will be perfectly valid for the W3C validator<\/a>:<\/p>\n
example 3:<\/em><\/p>\n
<ul>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Lorem<\/a>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Ipsum<\/a><\/li>\r\n  <li><a href="#">Dolor Sit<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n<p>Lorem ipsum...\r\n\r\n<p>Lorem ipsum!<\/p><\/code><\/pre>\n
…but it will not look very well as code.<\/p>\n
Under XHTML 1.0, there is no such problem. Only example 1<\/em> will be valid, when all opened tags are correctly closed. Such code is easier to be checked for any accidental mistakes, and it can be also read much easier by a machine.<\/p>\n
Also, you don’t have to use quotes for HTML attributes under HTML 4.01.<\/p>\n
example 4:<\/em><\/p>\n
<div class=container>\r\n  <p>Lorem Ipsum...<\/p>\r\n  <p class="blue">Dolor sit...<\/p>\r\n<\/div><\/code><\/pre>\n
Code like this will be valid for HTML 4.01, but not for XHTML 1.0. Under XHTML 1.0 only the following example will validate (when attributes are quoted):<\/p>\n
example 5:<\/em><\/p>\n
<div class="container">\r\n  <p>Lorem Ipsum...<\/p>\r\n  <p class="blue">Dolor sit...<\/p>\r\n<\/div><\/code><\/pre>\n
There are some more differences with HTML 4.01. Special characters like ‘&<\/strong>‘, " (quotes), etc., are not necessarily encoded (under XHTML 1.0, the ampersand sign (&) should be encoded as &amp;<\/code>, for example).<\/p>\n
Let’s not forget also that most of today’s CMS systems are programmed with XHTML 1.0 in mind (and not HTML 4.01), and if you use HTML in such a situation, it’s possible that you’ll end up with some ‘code mix’ — HTML & XHTML together in one page; in such a case, you’ll have to modify the way in which the particular CMS is working, or the code won’t validate at all…<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
If you are a good designer, you won’t have any problems using both HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0, without any noticeable difference. But even if you have a lot of experience in this area, using HTML 4 might hide certain caveats — it is much easier to allow certain types of mistakes, which the validator<\/a> won’t find at all (such as opened, but not correctly closed tags, etc.)<\/em>. From there to ending up with some kind of a tag soup<\/a>, is just one small tiny step… On the other hand, XHTML 1.0 is much more strict in this aspect, and will learn you easier how to write well-formed (and well formatted) code.<\/p>\n
I am observing with much interest the development of HTML and CSS, but for now I did not hear any strong arguments so that XHTML 1.0 to be abandoned (in favour of HTML 4.01, for example). As to HTML 5, for now it is only a working draft, and it has a long road to go, before it becomes a mature and well-supported standard…<\/p>\n
I prefer to use some new features, present in CSS3, which modern browers already support (like CSS rounded corners<\/a> — Firefox and Safari have perfect support for them), than trying to start coding again in HTML style, without the ‘X’:-)<\/p>\n
I might be wrong, but I prefer the stricter way of coding, which XHTML 1.0 imposes… Just a simple habit?<\/p>\n
May be! :-)<\/p>\n