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"application / xhtml + xml", why bother?

Nobody in their right mind really cares whether their web page is ‘text/html’ or ‘application/xhtml+xml’. And why should they? I mean my pages look the damn same either way. The heavens don’t open up and God himself doesn’t bestow me with something along the lines of eternal life when I set my web page mime types to ‘application/xhtml+xml’.

2005-03-17 / 01:31

8 Comments

By ghola
03/20/2005 04:42 PM
"nearly all of us will need to amend and correct our current work to allow the page to render as ?application/xhtml+xml?."

That's not true. HTML pages served as text/html and using the proper DOCTYPE need never be modified.

If you write bad XHTML then it will break when served as XHTML, that's not a spec problem, nobody forces anyone to use XHTML.

If your poodle explodes in the microwave, it does not mean there's something wrong with the microwave. It just means it's working.
By Egor Kloos
03/21/2005 11:05 AM
Rotterdam
Yes, that's true but it's also not reallity. Most 'xHTML' pages collect minor errors in 'text/html' that will break it's rendering in 'application/xhtml+xml'. Most CMS 's have problems with this. Creating a compliant template is one thing. Getting a CMS to do the same is for many still a luxuary. Especially when using web based WYSIWYG editors like FCKEditor to input articles. In the end we don't code to spec. but we code for what actually works and for what the clients pay for. Getting xHTML to work with a mime type that nobody uses is in most cases simply not an option.
By ghola
03/21/2005 04:52 PM
I guess that's what <em>transitional</em> is for.
By Egor Kloos
03/21/2005 05:27 PM
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Europe, Earth etc...
That doesn't negate my argument.
By ghola
03/22/2005 03:05 AM
Egor, i'm sorry i didn't negate your arguemnt. ;-)

I guess what I meant was if we're using technology incorrectly because we are allowed to due to laxist implementation, we're bound to run into problems when (if ever) the recommendations are followed more strictly.

In the mean time if you're in a transitional phase, use transitional, which will allow you to serve XHTML 1.0 as text/html. Forever. No correction needed.
By tom
04/06/2005 07:17 PM
sf, ca
Or just use HTML 4.01 Strict. That'll always be text/html, and it should be interpreted the same way xHTML served at text/html would be anyway, right?
By Mirko
04/18/2005 10:34 PM
Germany
Yes, you can use HTML 4.01, but graphical browsers are only in Quirks mode, not in standards mode.
Anyway, I use text/html with valid XHTML 1.0 strict.
I know this is wrong, but it has no effect for me.

The criticism should go to Redmond where some software from 2001 blocks advancement of the web
By tom
04/19/2005 01:26 AM
sf, ca
incorrect, using a proper html 4.01 strict doctype (with URL) should tell the browser to render in standards compliance mode.
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