Re: XHTML 2.0 considered harmful

Tantek Çelik wrote:

> After having had my own misgivings about the goals[1] and certainly some of
> the specifics[2] of XHTML2, and having first read Daniel's post[3], and now
> Mark's, I think there needs to be a serious reconsideration of XHTML2 as an
> effort at all.
> 
> I'd rather see efforts spent on HTML4/XHTML1,1.1,Basic errata and test
> suites.  All of these will provide immediate clear value to the HTML
> community.  In addition I think there is value in profiling SVG and SMIL for
> integration with XHTML Basic.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am Microsoft's representative to, and participate in, the HTML
> working group.

(a) thanks...

(b) I agree with the spirit of this message; from my perspective, what's
     important in the "xHTML" name is "HTML", ie a lingua franca for the
     web. The "x" is already here and nobody seriously wants to step back
     on that.
     I am not willing to comment more on the contents of XHTML 2.0. I do
     believe the whole thing should be, as it stands now, dropped and
     started again almost from scratch at least for the reason given in (c).

(c) after a deeper study, I think that XHTML 2.0 is going to drastically
     increase the TCO of web sites. It may reduce the cost of information
     systems based on that spec and being independant from a web front-end,
     but this forgets about the web itself.

(d) sorry to say, but XHTML 2.0 seems to me the live proof that something is
     going wrong at W3C. I feel that this spec represents a solution
     maximizing the gap between authors' needs and industrial standardization
     compromise. Again, I just cannot believe the HTML Writers Guild was part
     of the process that released XHTML 2.0 WD. XHTML 2.0 is only a guru's
     dream.
     I strongly suggest dropping all "XHTML 2.0" efforts in favor of a new
     "xHTML 5.0" language. Clearly a successor to HTML 4, feature-oriented,
     made for the _web_.

(e) "considered harmful" essays have at least one major value: they attract
     readers. In that sense, I am completely opposed to "considered harmful
     essays considered harmful". When compromise leads to nothing, it's worth
     shouting a bit.

</Daniel>

Received on Tuesday, 14 January 2003 06:28:49 UTC