Re: XHTML 1.0 Content-Negotiation

On Aug 20, 2005, at 14:07, Karl Dubost wrote:

> Did you have things breaking using XHTML 1.0 more than HTML 4.01 ? I 
> never had.

Personally, no, because I have been close enough to UA development to 
know that most of the time I wouldn't gain anything from serving 
application/xhtml+xml and when I do serve application/xhtml+xml, I do 
it very carefully. (My emphasis is on what goes on the wire. During the 
last couple of years when I have written software that deals with 
markup, I have used XHTML internally converting to and from HTML on the 
IO boundary.)

However, the question and answer about the differences of HTML served 
as text/html and XHTML served as application/xhtml+xml in the Mozilla 
Web Author FAQ did not come out of thin air. I observed that bloggers 
who wanted to appear progressive (or in one case actually needed 
MathML) and switched to application/xhtml+xml were struggling with the 
subtle differences and often were surprised that it was not just a 
matter of changing a HTTP header. I also observed that smart A-list 
bloggers (I am not naming names) who actively tried to get things right 
failed to ensure well-formedness when they were using text 
template-based tools (MT and WP) instead of a ground-up XML 
infrastructure.

> Plus the fact that nobody tells you that you are forced to use one 
> format or the other.

Right. I just happen to be in places where I see the problem reports 
when things don't go as easily as advertised. (Of course, no one is 
forcing me to help the people who have problems with the issue.)

> People make a choice, see the end of this mail.

However, many times the choice is not well-informed.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Saturday, 20 August 2005 12:46:58 UTC