Re: XHTML - ?

At 01:30 PM 07/05/00, you wrote:
>Lotta discussion about XML/XHTML/HTML etc...
>
>I have a question or three.
>
>It seems to me that from reading the XHTML specs, that XHTML isn't a
>substition for HTML, but rather a means for other devices to access web
>pages.  Not the extreme cut down version that the WAP provides, but a happy
>medium for portable devices like PDA's.  Where as HTML will continue to
>expand and take advantage of the power of desktop computers, XHTML will
>provide a similar document without all the bells and whistles.  Anyone else
>get this vibe?

I've converted about 8 sites to XHTML, and create all new sites in 
XHTML:  they work fine, even with legacy browsers, and the fact that XHTML 
is stricter helps reduce the number of browser-specific problems ... e.g., 
Netscape's notorious problems of screwing up when end tags that are 
optional in HTML are omitted.

HTML will not continue to expand.  XHTML is the successor to HTML.

>Concerning frames.  On one had it appears that XHTML has no support for
>frames what-so-ever.  On the other hand there is a frameset.dtd available.
>Could someone enlighten me?

I have one framed XHTML site.  Works fine, though the frameset page won't 
validate:  the frameset DTD does not appear to comply with the specs.

>Commenting out your <script>'s seemed a common practice for backwards
>compatability with browsers that didn't understand scripts.  XHTML parser
>apparently will quietly ignore anything between these comment tags, thus
>your script won't work (so much for backwards compatability).  Beyond server
>side solutions, should we be worried about this "problem"?

This could be a problem, not just for JS, but also for CSS.  I suspect that 
popular browsers will continue to process the comments as we expect them 
to, however, I admit that this aspect of the XHTML spec does appear to 
trash compatibility with legacy browsers.


-
Chuck Upsdell
Email:     cupsdell(at)istar.ca or cupsdell(at)torfree.net
Website:   http://home.istar.ca/~cupsdell/

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