Some doubts

[jorl17]

Hy'a all!I'm Portuguese and I learned HTML some time ago...I never got very good at it, but i can obviously manage myself trghowout the WWW.I, seven months ago read a tutorial on Javascript, i was going well untill i got to the arrays and i went down the plumb...And 4 months ago i found your website, wich is great, it thought me alot.Recently i learned CSS and a little bit XML and VBScript.So, I started learning XHTML and i got really angry.I like HTML as it is and i think it's totaly absurd the new XHTML...it doesn't let us commit mistakes and tthat for me isn't good. Besides the new closing tags like BR have that aspect (<br />), i hate that, it doesn't make any sence for me!I will just have to stuck in my head the new DDT and Doctype!And that stuff about we closing the tags with 'well-form' i don't totally like it either, but i understand it.SO all this anoying dialog was for a single question:Why XHTML?Why not HTML 4.0.3?WHY?Cumpliments:Jorl17 :)P.S: Sorry if i am naggy

[Little Goat]

well that's like saying "why html 4.03? why not 3.0?" or whatever the last version was. it will eventually replace html probably, and there are some other advantages, I just can't remember them right now.LG

[justsomeguy]

The point of XHTML was to make an HTML document, in addition to being HTML, also to be a well-formed XML document. That is why you need tags like <br /> instead of <br>. There is no closing tag for <br> (no </br> tag). An anchor tag has a closing tag: <a href="xxx">yyy</a>; there is a </a> that closes the tag. So in order to be a valid XML document, all tags need to be closed, and that is why tags like <br /> or <img /> close themselves.But really, it's a bad argument to say that the problem is that you aren't allowed to make any mistakes. You should not be allowed to make any. The web was a terrible place when anyone who knew how to copy and paste was throwing up webpages that only looked halfway decent in IE. If you don't know what you are doing, then you may want to try to find work somewhere else. No other job lets you make mistakes (if you found one, let me know), so there's no reason that you should be allowed to make mistakes with HTML or any other web language.

[jorl17]

It's just that i don't like it's changings. I took long to learn HTML and now i have to sort of learn it again you see?And I do mystakes...anda i have to find them later, but hey, i'ma kid, it's common to do that...i guess...

[Little Goat]

well all you hav to remember is to close all your tags and the document type ddeclaration. ( you could put the document type declaration in a txt file and start your pages from that file so you wouldn't have to remeber it)LG

[SmokingMan]

You also have to understand that nothing stands still, especially technology. It will continually advance and change, and like it or not, you need to keep up with it or you'll be left behind. If nothing ever changed, and we weren't forced to adapt, you would still have to get up off of the couch, walk across the room, and physically select one of the three TV channels available. Change is not only good, it's inevetible, and you need to adjust with the rest of us. Like it or not, the only constant in this world is change.

[johneva]

Hy'a all!I'm Portuguese and I learned HTML some time ago...I never got very good at it, but i can obviously manage myself trghowout the WWW.I, seven months ago read a tutorial on Javascript, i was going well untill i got to the arrays and i went down the plumb...And 4 months ago i found your website, wich is great, it thought me alot.Recently i learned CSS and a little bit XML and VBScript.So, I started learning XHTML and i got really angry.I like HTML as it is and i think it's totaly absurd the new XHTML...it doesn't let us commit mistakes and tthat for me isn't good. Besides the new closing tags like BR have that aspect (<br />), i hate that, it doesn't make any sence for me!I will just have to stuck in my head the new DDT and Doctype!And that stuff about we closing the tags with 'well-form' i don't totally like it either, but i understand it.SO all this anoying dialog was for a single question:Why XHTML?Why not HTML 4.0.3?WHY?Cumpliments:Jorl17 :)P.S: Sorry if i am naggy 

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Here take a look over this.Link

[Jonas]

Here take a look over this.Link

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Mainly this...

[jorl17]

well that's like saying "why html 4.03? why not 3.0?" or whatever the last version was. it will eventually replace html probably, and there are some other advantages, I just can't remember them right now.LG

Well, not exactly!From HTML 3.0 to 4.03 they added things, they did not change the models, the added, essencially, css, i think. But they did not change its business or implant new rules, they just kind'off 'updated' it.With XML they added somethings and changed others, wich don't make total sence to ME....i undesrtand their need. But with this all i wanted to ask another question. With XHTML, will the HTML pages be blocked? or just unreadble

[boen_robot]

No. They shouldn't be. That's what the different extensions and MIME types are for. Later versions of XHTML will requre the xhtml extension (I think) and the recommended mime type would be application/xhtml+xml unlike HTML's text/html which means that browsers would know when to apply XHTML rules and when HTML ones. However, you're right that in the future versions of XHTML (NOT necessary XHTML 2.0), XHTML pages would not be readable to browsers that don't support them, unlike XHTML 1.0 which is accessable for both HTML and XHTML enabled browsers. I'm not sure what the browser would do then... perhaps promt you to download the page (that's what happens with PHP files when PHP is not installed on the server I think)?