HTML vs XHTML

[Joejoe04]

Hi,I've been teaching myself (X)HTML and CSS for a while now, and ever since I started, I went with the assumption that I should be using XHTML because it was supposed to be the future. But lately, I have seen a decent number of people/posts on various sites saying that they have decided to go back to using HTML 4.01 for now. The main problem they site is the fact that you only get a benefit from using XHTML if you serve it using application/xhtml+xml, which is a problem b/c IE can't handle that. They also say that serving XHTML as text/html makes the browser try to read the XHTML formated tags as though they were HTML formatted tags. It would be my preference to remain using XHTML 1.0 so I wont eventually have to go back and change it later. So I guess my question is, if I can get my pages to work using XHTML served as text/html on all / most browsers, is it really that bad if I continue to do so? Thanks.

[Skemcin]

I'd stay with XHTML. Label all your files as transitional XHTML if you need to but there would be no reason, in my opinion, to regress to HTML. Plus, XHTML teaches you good habits.

[croatiankid]

I only use XHTML in applications (in combination with XML and/or MathML...), and in CMS. Also I always use a full strict doctype to avoid quirks. Indeed people say that XHTML is the future, and perhaps it is. But if you don't use it as it was intended to (in combination with XML technology), there's no benefit.