Comments on: Why XHTML is a bad idea

By: Emil Stenström

Emil Stenström — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:25:46 +0000

@K: Thanks for your comment, and good to hear that I make sense in a world of information overload :)

I truly think XHTML was one of the big reasons HTML5 has started to catch on now. People where simply not OK with some parts of XHTML, and wanted others. HTML5 (and XHTML5) are excellent alternatives.

By: K

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:53:42 +0000

This is an old blog post, but, boy am I glad I found it. Finally, someone who speaks clearly about this nonsense. I finally understand. Thank you, Emil.

In hindsight, what should have happened in the early 2000′s is, instead of pushing XHTML, authors and industry should have advocated and taught proper/recommended HTML4 & CSS coding.

In reality, that is what average web dev students were seeking back then. Most, like me, had hobby pages in the late 90′s with no sense of direction. Focus turned to XHTML with total lack of understanding of XHTML’s true purpose.

If I only understood back then, I would have never focused on XHTML – or focused on WAP but that’s a different story – and continued enjoying HTML.

I am excited about HTML5 and eager to learn about it soon… and it might lessen my perfectionist anxieties. Maybe XHTML caused it? :)

By: Steve Savage

Steve Savage — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:48:03 +0000

After several years away from the web, I’ve decided to revitalize my site. I’d been debating providing both an XHTML (for application/xhtml+xml browsers) and HTML version (for text/html browsers).

I’m leaning towards just publishing HTML5 right now for the simple fact: if I decide to put advertisements on my site I will no longer have complete control of the markup, and I’d rather have the tag-soup parser kick in then have “XML Parsing Error: mismatched tag” show up instead of my content.

BUT, I emphasized the word publishing for a reason. I will probably use an XHTML editor behind the scenes for the content I write, so I can use XSLTs to convert my XHTML documents to other formats.

By: Web Design: What is XHTML? « Obvious In Hindsight

Web Design: What is XHTML? « Obvious In Hindsight — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:50:46 +0000

[...] http://friendlybit.com/html/why-xhtml-is-a-bad-idea/ [...]

By: Web Design: What DOCTYPE do I use? « Obvious In Hindsight

Web Design: What DOCTYPE do I use? « Obvious In Hindsight — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:03:09 +0000

[...] If you’d like to research an alternative opinion on why not to use XHTML, read here (Note: It’s an old article, much of it may not apply but interesting no less): http://friendlybit.com/html/why-xhtml-is-a-bad-idea/ [...]

By: MWin

MWin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:19:38 +0000

Hmm, didnt keep my html code snipped…

try this:

Pragraph 1

Pragraph 2

Pragraph 3

By: MWin

MWin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:17:52 +0000

One more thing…

as for the looseness of html:

consider following, simplified, code:

Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2
Pargaraph 3

now, these 3 paragraphs, are they siblings to each other, or descendants?

I’m one of them programmer types, so for me this in fact is an issue…

as for the above example, as far as i could find out, FireFox (3.5) considers them siblings (automatically closes all non-closed paragraphs when a new one opens, i.e. paragraphs cant contain other paragraphs, just like the html4 dtd specifies), so does IE (7), netscape considers them descendants, and amaya wouldnt let me find out at all…

so, i guess thats one point on XHTMLs scoreboard…

hand

Mike

By: MWin

MWin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:09:24 +0000

Hello Everyone,

i read that article, and Emil does have some points…
but i want to add something to the “leave the error-handling to the browsers” topic:

One of the reasons why XHTML was introduced as a “cleaned up” HTML so-to-speak, is the increasing usage of internet on mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, that sort.

I know, hardware performance is constantly increasing, but so far most mobile devices just dont have the cpu for extended html-code-analysis and exception-handling, if they had, they would be even slower as they already are…

But in the end (at least until HTML5 is published, but even then) it’s the webdesigner’s choice which technology to use, i suppose they all have their pros and contras…

Just my thoughts, have a nice day,

Mike

By: Jim Westergren

Jim Westergren — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:22:41 +0000

Oh, that’s well. HTML5 have quite many new elements which I think will be great for usability and perhaps even future SEO. Looking forward to it.

By: Emil Stenström

Emil Stenström — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:21:08 +0000

@Jim Westergren: Nice that you liked the article :)

Since HTML5 is the future, it shouldn’t matter if you use HTML 4 Strict, or XHTML 1.0 Strict, they are all incorporated into HTML5. I truly believe that’s the best thing for the future of the web. It will take a couple of years, but browsers are already building offline storage and stuff like that. Also, big parts of the spec are just respecifications of how browsers have implemented stuff.

By: Jim Westergren

Jim Westergren — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:59:50 +0000

Hi Emil,

Good article and good point.

On my latest major site that I am currently building I am using XHTML 1.0 strict – mostly to be prepared for the future.

I tried sending it in XML with a similar PHP script that you have here but I disabled that after some testing. I can’t have my site breaking with parsing error because I missed to close a p element or forgot to unescape an & in an URL. Can’t take that risk.

Perhaps HTML 5 is the way to go. I have read some on that. But I guess it will take quite some years for that to be fully ready and supported.

By: Caracol y Punto » Blog Archive » HTML ó XHTML

Caracol y Punto » Blog Archive » HTML ó XHTML — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:11:27 +0000

[...] http://friendlybit.com/html/why-xhtml-is-a-bad-idea/ [...]

By: Best Practices » Blog Archive » XHTML versus HTML

Best Practices » Blog Archive » XHTML versus HTML — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:08:48 +0000

[...] I can’t say that either side has done anything to absolutely convince me, but Emil makes a compelling case with his article, Why XHTML is a bad idea. [...]

By: How Microformats Will Change the Web « Brian Cray’s Weblog

How Microformats Will Change the Web « Brian Cray’s Weblog — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:32:28 +0000

[...] the false perception that there is a bigger cause. It’s just created a lot of confusion. See: 1, 2, 3, 4 for just a few [...]

By: xhtml « Rofrol blog

xhtml « Rofrol blog — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:55:12 +0000

[...] Emil Stenström – Why XHTML is a bad idea [...]