ZooiblogOld-fashioned HTML?
- Tommy Olsson
- Gabriel Mihalache
- RussD
- Faruk Ates
HTML is not outdated, ye mangy gits
Faruk and Hayo were teaming up against Anne and me the other day, and it was about HTML. Now,
you might say, that fight is already over, is it not?
Well, it seems it isn’t. Anne is a lover of good code, and that’s no secret. He writes HTML occasionally and writes perfect XHTML too (be it with Arthur Steiner). Faruk is against the former, because, he says, HTML is obsoleted by XHTML.
Now I’m asking you, why is that? Of course, clients want to see XHTML, the big new buzzword that’s spread the web. HTML is nothing less. Okay, it isn’t eXtensible, but for most corporate sites (that have to get their designers elsewhere – bigger companies tend to have their own coders), that same extensibility isn’t needed at all. I know the battle has been fought, but if you’re as good as convincing your clients to ‘upgrade’ to XHTML, you should also advice them to use HTML if they have no use for XML or whatever spankin’ technology they might never need. Of course, the marketing trick is XHTML, but as soon as they know that HTML is nothing less, you’ve come a long way as a developer. But you did use HTML, and that’s what Hayo and Faruk didn’t like. “It’s deprecated,” “it’s so 90s”. Utter bull. HTML isn’t dead. HTML is still alive and evolving. There is no point in using XHTML instead of HTML when the advantages are lost.
(Short rant on semantics and forward-compatibility…)
HTML can be as strict and semantic as you like. Get your client to know that HTML isn’t necessarily tag-soup, table-based and outdated. It’s stupid to think that HTML is not forward-compatible. Why deprecate HTML when it’s still in use on 97% or something on the internet?
(That be all on that matter.)
I can’t ignore the fact that clients ‘prefer’ XHTML, but if you don’t try to convince them, they will soon be nagging about faulty code. And then you are the culprit. Of course, you can make your client one spiffy XHTML 1.1 spitting CMS (Faruk, I look at you here), but that’s not the case for all developers. Web Standards aren’t about XHTML. HTML is a standard too. Web Standards is about compatibility, usability, semantics and (discussably) validation.
Arthur told me that XHTML is one of the means of progression, but I’m not saying one should not use XHTML. I’m saying that it’s not wrong to use HTML. Thank you Arthur ;)
Just before posting: In the nick of time, Jacques Distler makes the case for HTML. Somewhat.
MIME-types on the Zooiblog
On another note, I’ve recently switched to application/xhtml+xml. It works like a charm. However, faulty code is still bugging me. Please be valid with your comments, and if you’re not, mail me ASAP. Your response will be highly appreciated.