I caught an article on Dev Archive by Tina Holmboe entitled “XTML – Myths and Reality”. I found this to be of interest given my XML activities recently. So I thought I would review some of the things she said, and figure out whether XHTML is in my future.The article was geared toward newbies in the field of XHTML. That means it is for me. It started by reviewing that SGML is too complex. HTML was made easy to use. XML was also made for easy implementation. It also clarified that XML is not an SGML application. XML is a set of conventions for SGML.
The web is moving from an SGML to XML format. One of the reasons for the move is to harness the power of XML namespaces. Shifting gears a bit, HTTP allows data type identification. This tells the client how to deal with data. XTML has its own new content type. This tells the client which parser to use on the data.
XHTML is stricter than HTML. There is a lack of XHTML support out there. In fact, no versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer support XHTML. That was all I needed to hear to determine that XHTML is not for me. Maybe a better way to put it is that XHTML is not for me just yet. I exclusively use Internet Explorer for everything I do on the web. I wonder why Microsoft is against supporting XHTML.
