[thelist] XHTML overrated

[Peter-Paul Koch]

>I wrote a mildly-worded "rebuttal" on whatever ALA digest came out 
>right after this, subject: "reasons to try XHTML."

Yes, I remember now.

>Since then, Champeon's simple argument of there being no reason _not_ 
>to use XHTML on new sites (if you hand-code) was enough to convince 
>me to use XHTML on my new sites.  seastorm.com is coded XHMTL 
>transitional & I'm building a new XHTML site, also.

As aardvark already said, the opposite is equally true. I don't say you
should not use XHTML, I'm just providing a counterweight against those
people who think it's a horrid sin not to use XHTML. In the end, it's a
personal choice, and nothing more than that.

>I mean, honestly, most browsers support HTML3.2, perhaps better than 
>HTML4.  So why bother to code HTML4?

A point. But my view is that browsers only support their own HTML, not any
standard. Oh, Microsoft and Netscape occasionally listen to W3C, but
there's NN-HTML and IE-HTML and the cross browser dialect most of us write
in. I have no idea if I make my sites in 3.2 or 4.0 and honestly I don't
care, as long as the browsers show what I want them to show.

>As for XML as a client-side language, I don't know much since I don't 
>use XML & the browsers don't support it well... but it would seem 
>that it would be really nifty in many ways.  For example, if I had a 
>long list of faculty members at the college for which I was building 
>a page I could make my code perhaps more descriptive...

Client side XML will be marvellous, when browsers finally get around to
supporting it. Even supposing that IE6 and NN7 will provide perfect
support, however, we can only start using it, say, three years from now
when the market share of older browsers like NN6 and IE5 will have dropped
below 10% (my personal border).

>This may be a stupid question, but will portable devices, with
custom-designed
browsers, bother supporting HTML? 

Depends on whether they want to show traditional web sites. If they do,
they'll have to support it because traditional web sites are written in
HTML. In a few years everything will be different, but it depends on what
mobile phone/whatever vendors want to obtain. Is your slogan Use The
Internet On Your Phone? Then people will expect to be able to surf the web,
ie. read HTML pages.

>On a completely different subject, is there a standards compliant replacement
>for <nobr>? 

white-space: nowrap;

Browsers don't support it, of course. There's also white-space: pre (same
as <PRE> tag) that's only supported by NN.

ppk