Request for DTD use information

I teach Web design at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne,
Wyoming, USA. The author of one of my new textbooks states: 

  All XML documents must begin with a document declaration. Because an
  XHTML document is XML, the recommendation states that documents start
  with the following XML declaration as the first line of code: 

  <?xml version="1.0" ?>

He goes on to say: 

  You currently should not include this declaration in you Web page
  code. Older browsers do not understand the declaration and may display
  it as text on the Web page.

This seems wrong to me. I have always taught my students to use the
above declaration with XML documents and to use one of the following
DTDs with XHTML: 

  Strict DTD: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN 
  http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
 
  For documents that exclude the presentation attributes and elements
the 
  W3C expects to phase out as support for style sheets matures. 
 
  Transitional DTD: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 
  Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
 
  For documents that include or might include presentation attributes
and 
  elements that W3C expects to phase out as support for style sheets 
  matures. 
 
  Frameset DTD: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01
Frameset//EN" 
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">
 
  For frameset documents. (They use strict or transitional in the
documents that open in frameset windows.) 

Am I teaching this material correctly or am I incorrect?

Your assistance and quick response in this matter is greatly
appreciated.

Many thanks, 

Vicki Cox
Internet Technology Program 
Laramie County Community College
Cheyenne, WY 82007
vcox@lccc.wy.edu
(307) 778-4354

Received on Saturday, 6 August 2005 09:06:42 UTC