As an instructor of a JavaScript and CGI programming class, I continually
battle students who skip the Web Site Design and Management course, or who
WSD&M instructor let them pass through without, it seems, knowing the basics
of HTML logic and structure.  A person learning HTML today will be able to
easily transition to XHTML, but someone versed only in XHTML may have
trouble editing documents their employer asks them to work with (newbies
always get the "upgrade this" projects because no one else wants them).

That having been said, you can teach good XHTML habits in HTML.  Don't
teach, for example, that some tag parameters can omit quotes - always use
quotes.  Don't even mention badly formed coding, like
<.b><.i>text<./b><./i>.  Always close <.p> tags.  Always use lower case tags
and parameters.  These are all requirements of XHTML that work just fine in
all versions of HTML I recall.  The remaining requirements of XHTML, like
terminating empty tags and no attribute minimization, can be taken care of
in a single class.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Mount, Software Engineer            steve(at)saltyrain.com
Home Site                            http://www.saltyrain.com
US Constitution Online          http://www.usconstitution.net
Clear your Soul            http://www.anonymousconfession.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "LSN Bluff" <lsnbluff(at)hotmail.com>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 7:35 AM
Subject: Start with HTML or XHTML? (slightly OT)


> As a web development instructor at a community college, I plan the courses
> for our students.
>
> I'm asking experienced developers for your opinions on what you would
> recommend a beginning web developer learn FIRST these days. (We all know
> that you never stop learning in this field...) Would you recommend that a
> beginner start with HTML and later transition to XHTML? OR would you
> recommend that the beginner start coding pages using XHTML syntax right
from
> the start?
>
> Thanks in advance for your opinions!
>
> Terry Felke
> http://www.harper.cc.il.us/bus-ss/cis/info/webdev.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
>
>

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