Web Standards [The Basics Part Two] - XHTML
The difference between HTML and XHTML
XHTML stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language. XHTML is HTML as defined through XML (Extensible Markup Language). XML allows progammers who understand it to write their own markup commands, or modify current ones, increasing the flexibility of a language such as XHTML.
XHTML pages can be read by all XML enabled devices and while waiting for the rest of the world to upgrade to XML supported browsers, XHTML gives us the opportunity to write “well-formed” documents now, that work in all browsers and that are backward browser compatible.
The difference, from the perspective of creating Web pages, is that XHTML has a few more rules than HTML. If you are following strict enough sets of rules, then you greatly increase the number of platforms and applications that can support our sites. XHTML is the new standard for HTML. Eventually HTML will become obsolete. XHTML is designed so that older browsers can still read it, leaving backwards compatability to not be an issue.
XHTML Basics
- All of your markup needs to be in lowercase.
- Every tag must have a corresponding ending tag.
- Every attribute value must be in quotes
- Nesting must be correct (and symmetrical).
- An ampersand (&) within an attribute value must use its character entity reference.
To learn more: XHTML Tutorial
- February 7th, 2006
- 5comments
- I am a proud member of the 9rules network
thank u for good work ;)
Maybe you should compare XHTML Strict to the corresponding HTML. I think you’d find out that the differences are minimal.
There is alot more to XHTML than you give away with this article isn’t it?
Just the fact that Xhtml is not for beginners, and the fact that most people has realized that semantics is more inportant than XHTML served as HTML.
99% of all “XHTML” sites use the wrong MIME-type. Nevertheless, I agree with Anne saying that XHTML has been good for the web, but the rise of HTML is a fact.
Alot of quotes here, but I think the goal of any developer is to write semantic and correct HTML 4.01 Strict, and keeping it but a couple of “/” from XHTML. So when the day comes, we may be ready.
This is meant for the novice. People in management — project managers or interactive content editors. XHTML is becoming more and more popular, basic HTML skills are going too soon be called basic XHTML skills. This is meant for those posting to blogs like newsvine that specifically ask for our HTML tags to be XHTML. If you know what XHTML is, this series isn”t for you — sorry.
This series was originally written for web editors who kept my sites from validating with their unclosed tags and poor mark-up. In todays industry, even non-developers/designers are forced to code on a basic level — even this basic level can be detrimental to a website if not done properly.
Sitepoint also has a pretty good introduction to XHTML — I suggest it for the novice only!
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/xhtml-introduction