Clint,


to what Terje Bless has said I would add:


In order that user agents or browsers can display bad HTML they have
become very bloated.

XHTML allows very much smaller user agents to display good code.


The downside is that bad code wont get displayed at all by some
browsers, try amaya to see this in action.


I also have misgivings about this route, as a teacher of people with
severe learning difficulties.

Our users would need very forgiving UA, as many of our users cannot
read or write; so instead we have chosen to create an XHTML template
authoring tool.


anyway this discussion should be restricted to another place.


best wishes


Jonathan



On Friday, June 6, 2003, at 04:46  pm, Clint Brooks wrote:


<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>Greetings,</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>I was wondering if
someone could provide me with some technical information on the XHTML
standard.  I am not a programmer but work in technology with end users.</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>Some of the great
advantages of the original HTML standard were the ease of use and the
flexibility with which the code could be used.  This enabled
non-programmers and non-computer experts to engage in their first
publishing experience and as you are all aware opened up a new era of
communication.  The simplicity and flexibility of the standard was a
key element of that, along with the fact that web pages could be
designed with the bare minimum of software: a text editor.</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>From my experience
with XHTML so far, it seems that any such ideals are being left behind
in a rush to recapture web publishing in the traditional software
paradigm.  The changes to the standard, particularly in the basic
flexibility of the way in which it could be written as well as
fundamental changes to some of the basic HTML tags, seem ill
considered at best and conspiratorial at worst.  I have heard more
than a few times the suggestion that the changes are in part an
attempt to force web authors to rely on software companies overpriced
web editing software to be able to keep up, a suggestion I hope is
inaccurate but one that carries a good deal of weight given the
disinterest the W3C seems to have with the average person's ability to
continue to use the language unaided.</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>The questions then
have to do with trying to understand why certain changes in the
standard have been chosen.  For example:  Why force authors using
XHTML to artificially "close" otherwise straightforward tags such as
<<br> and <<img> with <<br /> and <<img /> when the tags themselves
are singular in usage?  It is not adequate enough to suggest the need
to "migrate" XHTML to other standards.  As the central language of the
WWW it would seem that other systems and hardware that wish to take
advantage of web communications should migrate to the web standard,
especially given that the current usage of these media as web
communication tools is a small percentage of the overall usage.</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>Flexibility is
another issue of course.  The most obvious example of the W3C's
insistence on "cleaning up" usage for example is the requirement that
<<p> tags be closed.  For years a sizeable number of users (one might
argue a majority) used the <<p> tag much in the way the <<br> tag was
used, in order to create a full line space break.  The official use of
the <<p> was consider by many users to be simple excess, especially
considering the need for smaller, faster loading pages at the time (a
problem that is still with us today due to addendums such as lengthy
CSS and attached scripts, cookies, and other programming fodder).  It
would seem that the need for a simple tag to create the kind of line
break the <<p> was being used for was clear, and much more a priority
of the average user than the extended <<p> tag. (In all honesty if a
substitute for a single use <<p> tag exists, I'm not aware of it,
though would be happy to be educated as to what it is, even at the
risk of looking like a newbie.)</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>There are many other
criticisms that I have read of the XHTML standard, ones I'm sure this
list are familiar with and that are too detailed for me to address.
Suffice to say that I see the day coming when users will be forced to
rely on Microsoft or Adobe in order to create the most basic webpages
that meet standards as the changes in HTML/XHTML keep coming.  I hope
some of you can offer some hope that is not the case, or if not at
least provide legitimate and sound reasons why it must be so.</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller><smaller>Sincerely,</smaller></smaller></fontfamily>


<bold><smaller><smaller>Clint Brooks, M.Ed.

</smaller></smaller></bold><smaller><smaller>cbrooks@nwacc.edu

"Flames ignored, thoughts welcomed"</smaller></smaller>


</excerpt>