[thelist] character encoding and !DOCTYPE help

[Chris W. Parker]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roger Harness [mailto:magic32 at jps.net]
> Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 10:36 PM
>
> Though I'm a long ways away from any of my stuff validating,
> I at least want
> to get close. But I'm having a hard time grasping the
> concepts of character
> encoding and doctypes.

let me tell you what i understand (or better yet, what i assume to be
true.)

i assume that the character encoding declaration in a document is meant
to tell the client what language the client should use to display the
page properly.

for example...

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

is (afaik) the standard/default encoding for english (american english?)
speaking clients. in other words, a webpage directed at english
speakers, not japanese. the example in the link that you gave EUC-JP,
just by looking at it i assume it has something to do with Unicode and
Japanese. i'm not sure what the E stands for but i'd say UC stands for
Unicode and JP is for Japanese. (i could be totally wrong though, that's
just what popped into my head.)

as for doctype, it all depends on what you want to use and why. (for
example if you use frames, you should be using the frameset doctype.) as
far as what kind i think depends on how much you want to conform to the
standard. loose being the least conformist and strict being the most. i
always use HTML4.01/Transitional at work and on public/business related
sites and XHTML1.0/Strict at home for my personal site.

as far as CSS goes, i don't think that matters what doctype since when
you validate your page it does not check your css (that is of course
assuming it's not inline.) (but then again i could be wrong.)

i hope that helps in some way shape or form,
chris.

p.s. i don't think it's terribly important.