Le 1 déc. 2006 à 17:45, Ian Hickson a écrit :
You don't need to do one or the other. It's just up to you which
you do.
Neither is better or worse than the other. They are equivalent,
neither is
deprecated, they are both unambiguous, they are both strict, they will
both have validators and they will both have tools that can be used to
process them. There's no reason to try and do both.
I disagree with this choice-of-tool argument.
If you develop software to be used by other people, or other
programs, you don't want to lock them in either camp, so you have to
provide a way to generate both outputs. That's especially important
when programs and libraries are exchanging documents or snippets of
documents between each other. The DOM is a poor choice for these
exchanges, because different DOM implementation are not interoperable
between each other. The markup on the other hand can move more freely.
Having two markups pose the same problem as having two incompatible
HD DVD formats. Browsers do (or will) accept both formats, so as long
as the media type is known it'll work fine for them. But what about
every other piece of software in the middle that does not talk
directly to the browser?
That's the real difficulty when dealing with HTML and XHTML: the
choice isn't really about tools, it's a choice between two
incompatible exchange format. That's the reason why I think it's
compelling to have a common subset between HTML and XHTML. If you can
output something valid for both HTML and XHTML at the same time, then
you don't have to worry about what format is supported on the other end.
That's also why it's probably worth knowing what the common subset
looks like, how people might be tempted to use it, and what are its
exact limitations and pitfalls. The common subset is an integral part
of the the HTML/XHTML couple; it may be just a side effect, but it's
there and should not be ignored. It's pretty clear to me that it'll
be used whether we want it or not.
Oh, and here is one last remark. There are really *two* important
common subsets: one between conformant HTML and conformant XHTML, and
another between unambiguous HTML and well-formed XHTML. The first was
pretty irrelevant before HTML allowed "/>", but it did not prevent
people from using the second.
Michel Fortin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.michelf.com/
