HTML version choice [closed]

Answer 1

@Mike:

While I agree that validity is not needed to make a page render (after all, we have to keep IE6 compatibility in...), creating valid XHTML that IS compatible AND valid is not a problem. The problems start when people are used to HTML 4 and using the depreciated tags and attributes.

Just because the Web is a pile of crap does not mean that every new page needs to be a pile of crap as well. Most Validation errors on SO are so trivial, it shouldn't take too long to fix, like missing quotes on attributes.

But it may still be kind of pointless, given the fact that the W3C does not have any idea where they want to be going anyway (see HTML 5) and a certain big Browser company that also makes operating systems does not care as well, so a site could as well send out it's doctype as HTML 1337 Sucks and browsers will still try to render it.

Answer 2

If you have tools to generate your XHTML like any other XML document, then go with XHTML. But when you just use plain text templates, text concatenation, etc. you are OK with good old HTML 4.01.

Browsers now start to support this 10 year old standard.

Important: Avoid being called a bozo when producing XML

Answer 3

Dillie-O is right on with his answer of XHTML 1.0 Transitional but I would suggest shooting for XHTML 1.0 Strict and only falling back on Transitional if there's some piece of functionality you absolutely need that Strict is not allowing.

Answer 4

I'm all for XHTML Strict every time. I strongly believe that HTML should be more like XML. It's not hard to validate it if you know XML and the W3's validator ipoints you on the right track anyway.

XHTML 2.0 is heading toward what the W3 have been aiming for for a long time - the semantic web. The best benefit of XHTML 2.0 for me is that every conformant page on the web will be understandable as content, or an article (for that's what pages are - documents) becuase they all apply to the same standard. You would then be able to construct intepreters (i.e. browsers) that present the content in a completely different manner - there's literally thousands of ideas waiting here.

Answer 5

I'd shoot for XHTML Transitional 1.0. There are still a few nuances out there that don't like XHTML strict, and most editors I've seen now will give you the proper nudges to make sure that things are done right.

Answer 6

I aim for XHTML 1.0 Trans. It's better to conform so when bugs are fixed in the browsers you won't suddenly be working against the clock trying to figure out what actually needs changing.

In my opinion 1.1 is borked and 2.0 has been smashed to smithereens: Do I really need/want a header/footer tag?