Re: [OFF LIST] HTML 5 and XHTML 2 combined

On 6/1/09 15:24, Molte wrote:
> I think both languages have advantages. I'll list some of the greater
> ones (after my opinion) below.
>
> First of all HTML is from the time where you didn't use XML, but now
> nearly all major non-scripting languages to show something on the web is
> based on XML (of topic: why isn't CSS? It could use XPath to access the
> (X)HTML tags). And so should HTML be. Therefore you made up XHTML.
>
> Having many languages based on XML is good, because then you can easily
> use more than one language in one document (for instance MathML in a
> XHTML document).


> It's also good that XML doesn't allow any slacking with
> the code like not making it well-formed.

This is debatable.

> That makes it more
> device-independent and easier for browsers and applications to parse it
> without it would need a lot of error handling.

This is also debatable.

(See the recent discussions on www-tag about the importance of defining 
how things are to be parsed.)

> That the HTML 5 Working Group thinks they can rebirth HTML is without
> good reason in my eyes (why use an old, deprecated language when the
> newer is just better?).

text/html has never been "deprecated" in the W3C sense.

For why HTML5 became a W3C effort, I refer you to Tim Berners-Lee:

http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/166

> In XHTML 2 all elements (nearly) can serve as a hyper link or an image.
> I would never have thought of that idea myself, but when I think about
> it, what /is /the reason to have the img and a tags? Then it's just
> crazy they keep the tags around when they're no longer needed...

This isn't in HTML5 because browser vendors believed it would be too 
complicated to actually implement IIRC.

> Also a good thing about XHTML 2 is that it distances between structure
> and layout. That should make the job easier for screen-readers and such
> (and just make nicer code).

This isn't an advantage peculiar to XHTML 2.

>
> XHTML 2 uses XForms. After my opinion there is both pros and cons about
> that. That the layout is not defined makes the user able to choose which
> method to fill in a form he/she would prefer. But it also mean that you
> (as the web developer) can't control the layout, and therefore I think
> it might be triggy getting the input field to fit on the page when you
> don't know how it is going to look like. So I think you might keep the
> HTML Forms for now (alternatively you could allow both).
>
> XHTML 2's role attribute might help defining your code and should be to
> prefer compared to HTML 5's predifined classes (you should be free to
> choose whatever you want for class names).
>
> Now it should be time to see the good things about HTML 5...
>
> Let's start off with the figure element; it's cool you finaly will be
> able to make a description to an object or image.
>
> input is improved with support for e-mail, date, time, numbers, and
> URLs. Perhaps that is a better solution than the XForms?
>
> Having tags like heading, footer, and so will better structurise the data.
>
> And now, to end the good...
>
> Of some reason HTML 5 includes old deprecated layout-tags like font used
> when there was nothing called CSS yet.
>
> HTML 5 believes a language needs to be backwards compatible. I wonder if
> the persons behind that idea have ever though about, why you include the
> version number in the (X)HTML document... The browser should be able to
> parse many language versions differently.
>
> In HTML 5 when using a WYSISYG editor you NEED to include which editor
> in the page. Why do everyone have to know what I'm using to make my
> code? The rule is probably there so the browser can avoid some errors,
> it knows, that particular editor always creates, but why not just make
> the editor generate valid code?
>
> Waww... That was quite an e-mail. No matter I couldn't sleep this night,
> if that was what had to get out. Maybe I should publish it... :O
>
> --
> Molte
>
> CosSinCalc
> http://cossincalc.com

Received on Monday, 12 January 2009 17:55:45 UTC