[uf-dev] XBRL, XHTML, Microformats and context-aware computing

[Paul Wilkins]

On Dec 18, 2007 9:06 AM, Diane Mueller <dmueller2001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the approaches put forward is more of a Inline mashup rather than
> Microformats approach - this mashup approach is much easier to write an XSLT
> to extract valid XBRL from the XHTML. It's simpler, but it doesn't follow
> allow for the creation of valid XHMTL. It uses additional namespaces which
> cause the XHTML to be invalid.
>
> So my questions are:
>
> How important is valid XHTML?  Did you and your colleagues go down this
> path?  If so, where did you end up?

Valid XHTML is very important to this community. If it's not valid
then it's not XHTML and it's likely to cause indigestion to any
parsers that come across it.

If you're fine with crafting something that's not XHTML then please go
ahead, just don't call it XHTML.

I like to equate XHTML to a car. Take your average ordinary car, add
on some wings and a jet engine, and it becomes, well, a frankenstein
monster really. It's not quite an airplane and it's definitely not a
car anymore. Any cop would pull you over to stop you using it. The cop
is policing the standards of what is a car, so that there is no danger
to other car users.

With code it's the same deal. Call it XML if that's what it is, but do
not call it XHTML if it has wings and bolted on jet engine.

-- 
Paul Wilkins