Perhaps there should be a warning prior to starting to read all the posts that you are about to waste your time (worse than the time I lost 3 hours when I went to the movies to see Moulin Rouge).

It’s ridiculous to have public grievances like this, and make such comments – as people who buy your books (if you write books of course) read these comments and could be swayed into finding alternative authors.

This comment:
Well, I just * had* to share this email I received from someone evidently confused by this whole ‘XHTML is dead’ thing. Made me laugh, anyway …

/me slaps head

by Ian Lloyd (who I have not heard of before now) illustrates this point. Finding well described articles about web stuff is tricky especially as only a small talented few seem to know how to impart their knowledge so that others can understand sometimes difficult concepts, or concepts that should be simpler than they have been made out to be. Scoffing at someone who does not understand a concept is not a good way to behave. Enough said.

While I’m here, I have taught myself XHTML/CSS/PHP/Accessibilty/Info Arch etc etc (well it has taken longer than just my visit today to learn these things mentioned) and have taught myself well, using properly coded XHTML and validating and producing accessible code right from day one, although I still can’t remember quite how the DOCTYPE goes, and I have not really come across this term tag soup – it must be something that’s outdated. I would class what I imagine tag soup to be as just a big mess. They are called elements are they not? and the rest of the junk in there is not a tag either. Perhaps the old fashioned ‘tag soup’ name should be renamed something fitting such as ‘incomprehensible rubbish’ – a name which fits perfectly to a well outdated form of coding practice (if it was ever a practice).

Oh, HTML 5 – I did actually find a very good description/analogy of the HTML 5/HTML/XHTML thing: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/29/misunderstanding-markup-xhtml-2-comic-strip/
I don’t think that everyone should be annoyed that things change – they have to to improve things – but they should be annoyed at certain browsers who do not give two monkeys about what web standards and good web designers are doing to improve the web.

The problem with XHTML is that it didn’t directly add any value to the user experience.

Neither did HTML. It’s the code that tells browsers what to do and “user experience” comes from the content, not the code making up the presentation. Or can you give me one example of a single tag that leverages the user experience of html over xhtml? It’s like telling the same story in another business suite. Both can look and do the same… xhtml just tended to throw of some “balast”. (I’ve seen too much submarine movies lately.)

XHTML or HTML… ham or eggs? What about both? That would sure rock the web once and for all… not!

As it seems it’s either hoping “ye olde standards” will survive over the next 15 years, or it’s “quirks mode, baby – all the way down on history lane”.

Oh well, as long as I can read the content, why care what it’s wrapped in? As long as I can style it, the designer in me is happy; and as long as I can code it with 20 tags or less, the coder in me is happy. You can call it XHTML6-plus one day if you like; I will call it the logical way to a minimal, working website.

I once read an article by T.B.Lee about “good url’s don’t change”. I would like to extend the idea by saying “good doctypes don’t change because good hypertext doesn’t change either”!

Most XHTML experts were using their expertise to get more business re-coding existing websites. Good for them, not necessarily good for their clients.

My advice is to focus on something that makes life better for the person using the computer.