[thelist] Discussing XHTML and ROI with your "boss"

Judah McAuley judah at wiredotter.com
Thu Aug 15 20:33:01 CDT 2002


Tom Dell'Aringa wrote:
>>http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/2641.htm
>
>
> This is a forum where a bunch of developers like us discuss moving
> from HTML to XHTML. Again, this has nothing to do with ROI or
> business arguments, which was the question.
>
> What I am looking for is insight into how one might make the case for
> using XHTML/Standards/CSS instead of the "old ways" of doing things.
> If you say you save money, *tell me how*. If you say it saves time,
> *explain how*.

I'm sorry, but your post really made you come off sounding like an ass.
  People *were* trying to help you and you blew them off rather nastily.

To quote from that webmasterworld thread, someone quoted a W3C note:

"Modularizing XHTML provides a means for product designers to specify
which elements are supported by a device using standard building blocks
and standard methods for specifying which building blocks are used.
These modules serve as "points of conformance" for the content
community. The content community can now target the installed base that
supports a certain collection of modules, rather than worry about the
installed base that supports this or that permutation of XHTML elements.
The use of standards is critical for modularized XHTML to be successful
on a large scale. It is not economically feasible for content developers
to tailor content to each and every permutation of XHTML elements. By
specifying a standard, either software processes can autonomously tailor
content to a device, or the device can automatically load the software
required to process a module."

That is a business case.  Obviously you didn't read the thread.  To go
even beyond what the W3C mentioned, I'd argue the following:

XHTML is not only a subset of SGML (like HTML), it is a syntactically
valid XML document.  This means that you can do all sorts of things with
is, like use alternate stylesheets and XSLT to transform it to match the
display characteristics of different browsers (read: cell phones, pda's,
search engine spiders).  That seperation of content and display opens up
all sorts of forward-looking display opportunities.  XML-oriented
structures are also more friendly to manipulation by programming
languages with nice, happy RegEx expressions.

Furthermore, use of current W3C standards ensures future compatibility.
  Standardization is becoming more and more common amongst browser
agents.  The best way to future-proof your applications is to code to
established standards.

I'd argue that future-proofed applications, platform independence, and
the ability to multi-purpose content are all solid business cases.  And
all of those sort of arguments were included in links sent to you in
previous threads.

Hopefully this will help you in your current predicament.

And yes, stereotypes often do work in the real world.  People have a
tendency to fall into certain positions because they are that sort of
person.  No, it doesn't always apply and I don't think that most people
will say that people are *always* this way or that.  But structures and
hierarchies have a tendency to reinforce themselves.  So don't jump on
people for projecting a common behavior type into a position that
frequently displays that behavior but doesn't happen to in your position.

Judah






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