Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
On 6/7/05, XStandard Vlad Alexander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... [Ian] 4. Author decides to send the same content as application/xhtml+xml, because it is, after all, XHTML. [Vlad] Author wants to learn more about XHTML. What? ... I think arguments like this don't help Web standards. And articles with sensational headlines like XHTML is dead is irresponsible and fear mongering. This is a critical time for Web standards because Web standards are on the verge of becoming mainstream. Software vendors are thinking about making their products/tools standards-compliant, thanks in part to the efforts of WSG members. Don't let your efforts be undermined. Let's keep our eyes on the prize. Yes. Only critical thing for the Web standards is _understanding_ them (and HTML4 _is_ a standard, you know?), not just using something that is cool and much talked about. And understanding includes knowing pros and cons and when and _why_ to use each. What many miss is the fact, that Ian's article and fears is based on the way things work in the real life: oh, let's try something cool, oh it breaks, to the hell with it, who cares. And XHTML makes it much easier to shoot oneself in the foot. So advocate semantics, advocate clean coding, advocate separation of content and presentation, advocate standards - not just a bunch of letters with that sexy X in front. Regards, Rimantas -- http://rimantas.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 **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Web standards should not be an exclusive club for those that do everything right from the get go. We need to welcome everybody to the club who makes an effort. And if they don't get it right the first time or the second time, that is okay! Thank you i needed to hear that. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Apparently the MIME/DOCTYPE argument of XHTML vs HTML has been going on for a while, a bit out of my scope. I only have one argument to contribute, which I don't believe I've seen before and may be of some value. On Jun 7, 2005, at 7:17 AM, Rimantas Liubertas wrote: Yes. Only critical thing for the Web standards is _understanding_ them (and HTML4 _is_ a standard, you know?), not just using something that is cool and much talked about. And understanding includes knowing pros and cons and when and _why_ to use each. I (my company, my team, my clients) am interested in standards only so far as they make the future more predictable. To make the future more predictable, my code today needs to be more regimented. HTML is a standard; it is broadly supported today, but its future is a predictable dead end. Any future versions of a document coded in HTML will need to be coded from scratch, or a custom parser will need to be made to convert it to some future standard (or close enough that hand-tweaking the rest is ok). Because HTML is more loosely defined, it is more difficult for teams to code to a regimented standard, making the prospects of even a custom parser unlikely in the future. Things don't *have* to become sloppy just because the team codes in HTML, but it will be difficult to tell if they are becoming sloppy -- so the future is not as predictable. XHTML is a standard; it is poorly supported today, but its future will allow it to be predictably converted to any other XML standard through standardized tools (offline, regardless of MIME type or DOCTYPE). It is a highly regimented standard, with tools already built to help coding teams make their code more predictable. XHTML is useful to me because I can swap out the DOCTYPE and serve it as HTML, because it *is* HTML, giving it broad support today while giving it a predictable and flexible future. This is, essentially, XHTML-compatible HTML 4.01 Strict. One of the central tenets of the arguments that we should be coding to HTML instead of XHTML is that the only or primary purpose of using XHTML is that you need XML-based abilities (namespaces, etc.). This is something I agree with. However, it is a mistake to believe that these abilities will be used today, when the document is created, or even tomorrow when it is served from your web server. It might be 5 years from now when the document is inserted as-is into an XML database archive, or 7 years from now when converted to XHTML2, or later this year when you get around to syndicating that content you've been marking up for the past 5 years. We are coding and serving HTML today; by coding it as XHTML-compatible we can extend the life of the document indefinitely. And that's all I have to say about that. -- Ben Curtis : webwright bivia : a personal web studio http://www.bivia.com v: (818) 507-6613 ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
On 6/7/05, Ben Curtis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... XHTML is useful to me because I can swap out the DOCTYPE and serve it as HTML, because it *is* HTML, giving it broad support today while giving it a predictable and flexible future. This is, essentially, XHTML-compatible HTML 4.01 Strict. _Only_ because most popular browsers failed to implement SHORTTAG YES. If that would not be the case we could spares some flame-wars... Regards, Rimantas -- http://rimantas.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 **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote: Russ wrote: [quote] At the risk of being burned at the stake, I think that unless you are willing to serve your pages as application/xhtml+xml with content negotiation, then you are probably better off staying with HTML 4.01 at this time. [/quote] Let me be the first to gather the kindling :-) The whole MIME debate started with Ian Hickson. Let me summarize his argument: If you author bad XHTML and serve it up as HTML, you won't know that you have invalid XHTML and you will blame XHTML when you find out. Sorry, this is not a valid argument. This is fear mongering. That might not be a valid argument but that was not Ian's argument (if I remember it properly). Here's what I think he was saying 1) the whole point of XHTML, is that it is xml and that it requires well-formedness 2) if you do not server application/xhtml-xml you don't gain that an you may as well be using HTML 4.01 3) additionally, sending XHTML with an HTML mime type is against standards, just as much as having a instead of amp; 4) because it is against standards, you can't expect standard behaviour from browsers. In reality they should all be putting a after your br/'s and input/'s and such (but only a one or two browsers actually implement that). I know the PHP DOM parser screws up when you give it a text/html file with an xhtml namespace. For all intensive purposes, you file will just be an oddly written html file with an incorrect namespace and incorrect dtd. The only time I find this is useful is when your sending content to a UA that does not support application/xhtml-xml and you don't want to rewrite your document for that. Alan Trick __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.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 **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Douglas Clifton wrote: Ha! The shoe's on the other foot, eh Russ? I can't believe the WCAG 1.0 Guidelines and Checkpoints for Flash link in section 6 goes to a .swf file. o_O -- Love does not demand its own way.1 Corinthians 13:5 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Completely true - the irony! The original post is here: http://www.markme.com/accessibility/archives/007344.cfm Unfortunately, it too goes off to the same flash file. Russ I can't believe the WCAG 1.0 Guidelines and Checkpoints for Flash link in section 6 goes to a .swf file. o_O ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Russ, One of the topics you discuss is your stance on the XHTML vs HTML debate. Your links support your stance -- I've read these before, and find them interesting and insightful, however they are trying to convince the reader of their point and I prefer a balanced argument. In looking for articles on the other side of the argument, I quickly found myself swamped in a mountain of words, some rational, some rabid. It would take days to wade through. Do you know of a place or article that is a good roundup of the arguments, presented neutrally or balanced so the reader can assess his/her position and decide accordingly? Right now I'm serving HTML (text/html Content-type headers), but as a coding practice we code as XHTML 1.0 Strict (for the cleanliness of the code, not for the XML properties). For the sake of validation as a coding tool, we need to put in the XHTML DOCTYPE, but I'd like to serve the HTML DOCTYPE in order to match our Content-type headers. Perhaps some automated scripty thing. But that is neither here nor there. What I really want to do is weigh what I regard as our shop's personal coding standards against a roundup of these arguments to see where we stand. Any pointers? -- Ben Curtis : webwright bivia : a personal web studio http://www.bivia.com v: (818) 507-6613 ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Russ wrote: [quote] At the risk of being burned at the stake, I think that unless you are willing to serve your pages as application/xhtml+xml with content negotiation, then you are probably better off staying with HTML 4.01 at this time. [/quote] Let me be the first to gather the kindling :-) The whole MIME debate started with Ian Hickson. Let me summarize his argument: If you author bad XHTML and serve it up as HTML, you won't know that you have invalid XHTML and you will blame XHTML when you find out. Sorry, this is not a valid argument. This is fear mongering. For more advocacy along the same line from Ian, have a read of this: http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xslt This article advocates the use of Python, Perl, JavaScript, C++ and a DOM parser to do transformations over XSLT. This clearly shows that Ian's knowledge on the subject is academic. Anyone familiar with the benefits of XSLT, will get a good laugh from this short article. Regards, -Vlad http://xstandard.com Standard-compliant XHTML WYSIWYG Editor ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Ten questions for Russ
Any pointers? Hi Ben, When interviewed, I was reluctant to express an opinion on this topic for the very reasons you describe - the XHTML vs HTML argument quickly turns from facts to opinion - similar to the font size and liquid vs fixed width debates. I completely agree with Vlad that Hixies article is not the best on this subject. It is poorly written but does have historic value. Probably the best articles to read would be those where information is delivered from the W3C itself like: HTML Versus XHTML http://webstandards.org/learn/askw3c/oct2003.html Serving XHTML with the Right MIME Type http://webstandards.org/learn/askw3c/sep2003.html Some links for the for opinion can be found here: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/xml.html#xhtml Good luck Russ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
