is HTML the way forward

[rookie1010]

hello

i was trying to understand the differences between HTML and XHTMLand came across a quote from tim-berners lee which made me feel that HTML is the way forward, at least that is what i understood

"The attempt to get the world to switch to XML, including quotes around attribute values and slashes in empty tags and namespaces all at once didn't work.

you guys think HTML not XHTML is the way forward

Does IE support only HTML (i understood this from the wiki on XHTML) ?
Do mobile browsers support HTML (to my understanding they were the main motivation behind the development of XHTML) ?

 

[drebo]

In my opinion, humble as it is, XHTML was needlessly complicated and convoluted...much like IPv6.

I understand the need for standards and compliance and what not, but it seems to me that browsers hadn't even gotten HTML 4 right before they went off and threw a new wrench into the holes.

To be honest, between HTML and CSS, there's very little you can't do. Rich features like AJAX fill in the gaps. There just isn't enough incentive to brave the headaches that come along with XHTML for me to bother making the move.

That's my opinion alone.

As for IE, IE does support XHTML. Some mobile browsers do support straight HTML, some don't. XML with XSL translations is more than enough to build sites that share a data set but are cross-platform capable. No XHTML necessary.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply, sounds ike XHTML is a dead duck. so most webpages continue to be wrotten in HTML

if a browser supports xhtml, then that functionality of the browser uses the DTD for XHTML,correct? (the DTD does describe the XHTML language, correct?)

 

[drebo]

The DTD tells the browser which language is going to be used when rendering the page. It's mostly redundant, as most browsers will figure this out for themselves.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply,

my understanding is that the DTD is a document, if the browser can not figure it out, then would it need to download the entire DTD to determine the language when rendering the page or would a snippet of the DTD be embedded in the page the mobile browser downloads.