On 3/28/06, Steve Olive <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > We are teaching the use of XHTML 1.0 Transitional served as text/html to > account for the well known problems with Internet Explorer in regards to > application/xhtml+xml documents. We have a couple of pages that are served as > application/xhtml+xml from our Apache web server to demonstrate the problem > as well as some Java demonstrating the actual HTTP Headers and requests. > Students can publish pages as application/xhtml+xml if they wish to try this > out. We also teach the use of CSS as the preferred option for layout, but > also recognise that in some cases students will have difficulties with CSS > positioning so pages are XHTML 1.0 Transitional standards.
As many other listers have said, if you are going to use XHTML 1.0 then teach strict, because transitional is only meant to be used for pages that are transitioning from a previous spec to XHTML 1.0 Strict. It is not meant to be used for new pages being developed. As for teaching XHTML 1.0 at all, I am student in a course that teaches XHTML 1.0 Strict served as text/html and I can give you a little insight on where this goes. Yes, students can be held up to the validator as a part of their grade, and no, not all pages students make are valid. The problem is, and this is a huge problem that the course does not address, is that a large number of the students in the course know nothing about XML and they have no idea of how they are abusing XHTML and how their sites would never work if served correctly. Actually the course does not even cover mime-types at all. Requiring that pages be valid might be an exercise in futility since most students have no idea that invalid XHTML pages served as ...+xml don't work. So what I am proposing is this: if you want to teach XHTML, then use strict and teach your students what XHTML really is and how to correctly serve it in the distant future when it is widely supported. But I can tell you as a student working with HTML 4.01 Strict and XHTML 1.0 Strict that there isn't much different between the two for the majority of the work that students do, especially when you are teaching students to write semantic code. There is also nothing wrong in the long run with using HTML 4.01 as it is purely stable and totally supported and is probably a lot better for your students to write for their future clients. As an aside I think I should recommend to you that you require your students use CSS-P. It's required in my courses and honestly all of my classmates can handle it. There's a wealth of information out there on nailing any layout in CSS and as long as you are only expecting your students to design for IE 6 and the good browsers then there's no reason for them to slack off and use tables. Any student that doesn't learn to design with CSS-P well is only being put at a disadvantage as knowledge of CSS-P is becoming more important every day. > The reasons we decided are for future compatibility and the relatively simple > methods that can be used to change from text/html to application/xhtml+xml. Again, HTML 4.01 is totally future compatible and more importantly it is not simple at all to switch from text/html to ...+xml. Rendering, CSS, and the DOM behave differently in ...+xml and unless one starts from the beginning designing for ...+xml their pages are bound to have problems when they make the switch. > Should we go back to teaching HTML 4.01? You can definitely teach your students to use HTML 4.01 but also cover a few assignments on XHTML. What matters is to give them the information they need to know what they are doing and why, whether they using XHTML or HTML. -- -- Christian Montoya christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
