XHTML 1.1 vs HTML 4.01?

[William Gill]

I was of the (possibly misguided) impression over the last several years
that XHTML 1.1 was the current direction of web publishing. Lurking
here, I sense a pronounced disdain for it. At the risk of incurring the
wrath of some here, could you give me some insight on this, and possible
direction. The last thing I need is to spend a lot more time and effort
"mastering" something that I shouldn't be doing in the first place.

 

[David Dorward]

I was of the (possibly misguided) impression over the last several years
that XHTML 1.1 was the current direction of web publishing. Lurking
here, I sense a pronounced disdain for it. At the risk of incurring the
wrath of some here, could you give me some insight on this, and possible
direction.

XHTML 1.1 adds support for Ruby annotation (which has virtually nil
support among clients) and (if used correctly) isn't supported by,
among others, Lynx, GoogleBot or any version of Microsoft Internet
Explorer. There's plenty of discussion on the subject in the archives
of this newsgroup and of comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html.

 

[William Gill]

XHTML 1.1 adds support for Ruby annotation (which has virtually nil
support among clients) and (if used correctly) isn't supported by,
among others, Lynx, GoogleBot or any version of Microsoft Internet
Explorer. There's plenty of discussion on the subject in the archives
of this newsgroup and of comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html.

I did a quick review (I'll get more in depth later, but thought it
polite to reply promptly), and can see that my efforts would better
spent getting all my documents from HTML 4 transitional to strict.

Thanks.

 

[John Hosking]

I did a quick review (I'll get more in depth later, but thought it
polite to reply promptly), and can see that my efforts would better
spent getting all my documents from HTML 4 transitional to strict.

What a refreshing change! A poster who lurks first, writes clearly, and
responds politely! I was about to give up hope...

A well-behaved gentleman like yourself would be welcome in most any
technical discussion you'd care to contribute to. You might also want to
visit/lurk/participate at c.i.w.a.html, if you're not already.

One of the multitude of articles and discussions regarding XHTML is
sitting in my bookmarks (from 2005):
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200501/the_perils_of_using_xhtml_properly/
(which URL which probably wrap). That article comes from a different
direction, but touches on some of the issues to consider. Be sure to
read through the comments.

I haven't had need to touch XHTML so I stay with HTML 4.01 strict.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit David Dorward:

XHTML 1.1 adds support for Ruby annotation (which has virtually nil
support among clients)

The parenthetic remark is not correct. Ruby annotations are supported, with
limitations, by Internet Explorer (even in version 6). On the other hand, IE
is happy to do Ruby irrespectively of the document type you declare - it
does not care the least about the document type, except for analizing the
doctype string for the sole purpose of selecting Quirks vs. "Standards"
mode.

 

[Tim Streater]

I did a quick review (I'll get more in depth later, but thought it
polite to reply promptly), and can see that my efforts would better
spent getting all my documents from HTML 4 transitional to strict.

I am also engaged in the same process.

 

[David Dorward]

Scripsit David Dorward:

The parenthetic remark is not correct. Ruby annotations are supported, with
limitations, by Internet Explorer (even in version 6).

So that is one client that supports it, so long as you don't serve it
as application/xhtml+xml (which you "SHOULD" do).

 

[dorayme]

What a refreshing change! A poster who lurks first, writes clearly, and
responds politely! I was about to give up hope...

Hang on there... give him time... he might change. It may be a
ploy to disarm you... I have been reflecting deeply on JK's point
about it being hard not to be cynical in _this_ world.