[thelist] <!DOCTYPE >

Shawn K. Quinn skquinn at speakeasy.net
Sun Jun 22 19:51:20 CDT 2003


On Wednesday June 18 2003 07:11, David Turner wrote:
> hi gurus,
>
> i am modifying a spec for a website, that is being developed by
> external developers.
>
> currently in the technical overview it says that "html code is
> produced following W3C's guidelines"

"Guidelines" should be "specifications"; I think "guidelines" is a
misleading term in this context.

> i wanted to make this a bit more specific, something along the lines
> of....
>
> --------------------
>
> The html code is produced following W3C's HTML standard 4.01, with
> each page having the line
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
>
> at the top.
>
> This will allow validation using http://validator.w3.org
>
> --------------------
>
> what are the lists thoughts on this?
>
> is html 4.01 the standard i should be using? or will using 4.01 limit
> the number of browsers that users can use? should i be using a
> earlier standard? HTML 3.2 perhaps?

Are you serious? HTML 3.2 is total garbage that set the Web back about
4-5 years. Using it in new documents today is a galactically atrocious
idea that should not even be considered. The proprietary presentational
extensions to HTML are the reason that the CSS level 1 spec in 1996 was
unusable until 1999 or 2000; such wonderful garbage like <font>,
<center>, and the 'align' attribute needs to be buried six feet under
where it belongs.

HTML 4.01 with CSS is much flexible and adaptable to future Web
 browsing environments, and is the only reasonable choice for a new
 site among versions of legacy HTML. XHTML 1.0 and 1.1 are logical
 future steps should the need arise.

> is this a good thing that i am trying to implement?

I see nothing wrong with it in general.

--
Shawn K. Quinn



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