[microformats-discuss] When we say "XHTML" do we mean...

[Ryan Tomayko]

On 10/17/05, Tantek Çelik <tantek at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> The question of 'When we say "XHTML" do we mean...' is something that I've
> often heard.
>
> In my opinion:
>
> For many reasons applications/xhtml+xml is not practical today.  As
> specified, I'm not sure if it will ever be practical (there's plenty of
> offlist discussion of this, so I won't go into details other than to say
> incremental rendering, scripting, events).
>
> However, I *still* find utility in both the term "XHTML" and the spec XHTML
> 1.0.

Absolutely. I wanted to follow up immediately after I sent my original
message to make clear that I was in no way suggesting that you guys
back away from XHTML and I'm glad after reading the responses that it
wasn't read that way. It has huge utility, IMO, because it's a highly
specified/constrained syntax for HTML semantics. You can't beat it on
the "be conservative in what you produce" side of the equation and
people who care (on the production side) will be extremely greatful
it's not more loose.

> Hence I define use of "XHTML" as *valid* use of *strict* HTML4.x, or XHTML
> 1.0 that conforms to Appendix C Compatibility Guidelines, and omits use of
> any presentational elements/attributes.

Good. Personally, I would tell anyone who is producing microformats
that XHTML 1.0, served as application/xhtml+xml, and passing strict
validation is a MUST - try as hard as you can. I would then tell
anyone consuming microformats that HTML 4.x served as anything should
be expected. :)

> I've made this statement with more details in my presentations on "The
> Elements of Meaningful XHTML":
>
>  http://tantek.com/presentations/2005/09/elements-of-xhtml/
>  http://we05.com/podcast/mp3/we05-2-tantek-celik.mp3

I'll take a look.

Thanks,

Ryan Tomayko
                                 rtomayko at gmail.com
                                 http://naeblis.cx/rtomayko/
                                 http://lesscode.org/