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Re: xhtml 1.0, xhtml 1.1, html 4.01, or html 5.X? -Guy Macon

On Jul 19, 9:00*pm, Guy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/wrote:
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Denis McMahon wrote:
So, the choice is the mature and widely supported html 4.01,
a stepping stone (xhtml 1.0), or the not fully supported xhtml 1.1.
I'm inclined to go for html 4.01 strict, can anyone convince me
that >this is the wrong decision at the moment?

Of the three choices you have presented, I would say that
html 4.01 strict is the best choice
HTML 4.01 strict is the best and most recommendable choice for now.

2 main differences between HTML 4.01 strict and HTML 5 is that
- HTML 5 will push the separation between structure and presentation
furthermore. So those who do that already in their HTML 4.01 strict
webpages will have less work to do later in the years to come when
upgrading to HTML 5. Another compelling reason to separate further
presentation (style) from structure (content) is that Internet
Explorer 8 will finally fix a lot of the CSS 2.1 bugs.
- HTML 5 will add new elements which are more semantic elements. <nl>
(navigation lists), <section, <footerfor page footer, <header>,
etc.. which will add more meaning to the structuring elements of
current webpages. Those who already do such page divisions with <div>s
will not feel lost in any way when HTML 5 finally become official.

HTML 5 will in many ways become a more logical, more coherent
extension, continuation of HTML 4 than XHTML 1.x.

Regards, Gérard
--
156 bugs in Internet Explorer 7
http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE7Bugs/
130 bugs in Internet Explorer 8 beta 1
http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/

Jul 20 '08 #1
11 2542
GTalbot wrote:
2 main differences between HTML 4.01 strict and HTML 5 is that - HTML 5
will push the separation between structure and presentation furthermore.
The only major change with regards to dropping presentational HTML are a
few of the table-specific presentation attributes (e.g. 'align',
'valign'). Most of the other presentational HTML from 4.01 Strict (e.g.
<b>, <i>, <sup>, <sub>, @style) is still present in HTML 5.

The bigger change is the move of a lot of semantics from classes to the
element tag names. e.g. <div class="section"becoming <section>

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.24.4-1mnbcustom-g5n1, up 28 days, 18:20.]
[Now Playing: Everclear - Brown Eyed Girl [Van Morrison]]

Extending hCard with RDFa
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/07/16/hcard-rdfa/
Jul 20 '08 #2
In article <pa*********************@tobyinkster.co.uk>, Toby A Inkster <us**********@tobyinkster.co.ukwrites:
>GTalbot wrote:
>2 main differences between HTML 4.01 strict and HTML 5 is that - HTML 5
will push the separation between structure and presentation furthermore.
Most of the other presentational HTML from 4.01 Strict (e.g.
<b>, <i>, <sup>, <sub>, @style) is still present in HTML 5.
I'm afraid that I don't see superscripts and subscripts as merely
presentational (although I do certainly admit a presentational aspect).

I've written a lot of pages on various mathematical topics, and can tell
you that there's a big difference between "a-sub-2" and "a-squared". An
even bigger difference between "a-sub-2-cubed" and "a-sub-3-squared".

The fact that these differences are shown, and have been shown for several
centuries, by differing placment of numerals does not change the fact that
they very definitely represent differing content.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Visualize whirled peas!
Jul 22 '08 #3
Michael Stemper schreef:
In article <pa*********************@tobyinkster.co.uk>, Toby A Inkster <us**********@tobyinkster.co.ukwrites:
>GTalbot wrote:
>>2 main differences between HTML 4.01 strict and HTML 5 is that - HTML 5
will push the separation between structure and presentation furthermore.
> Most of the other presentational HTML from 4.01 Strict (e.g.
<b>, <i>, <sup>, <sub>, @style) is still present in HTML 5.

I'm afraid that I don't see superscripts and subscripts as merely
presentational (although I do certainly admit a presentational aspect).

I've written a lot of pages on various mathematical topics, and can tell
you that there's a big difference between "a-sub-2" and "a-squared". An
even bigger difference between "a-sub-2-cubed" and "a-sub-3-squared".

The fact that these differences are shown, and have been shown for several
centuries, by differing placment of numerals does not change the fact that
they very definitely represent differing content.
But isn’t mathml supposed to replace all that?

H.
--
Hendrik Maryns
http://tcl.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~hendrik/
==================
http://aouw.org
Ask smart questions, get good answers:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Jul 23 '08 #4
My code generator generates xhtml 1.0. I've been asked a couple times
why - I choose xhtml 1.0 because all the XML parsers, libraries and
tools available should work perfectly with it (and have so far). As
generated code, the fact that I have all those tools at my disposal is
important. As I understand from some quick reads at W3C, html 5 will
extend xhtml 1.0, but not necessarily xhtml 1.1. So until that's a
completed, stable and approved standard, I'm using xhtml 1.0.
--
Shaun
Jul 24 '08 #5
On 24 Jul, 15:31, smcintyre <smci1...@gmail.comwrote:
My code generator generates xhtml 1.0.
While it's valuable to use the XML tools to generate the XML-Infoset
for your web pages, it's still an advantage to be able to generate
HTML 4.01 Strict rather than XHTML.

So why not use these same tools to generate HTML instead? If you
generate the page's XML data model in exactly the same way, you can
then use these tools to serialise it into HTML instead. The code isn't
much more complex and you gain a more useful output format for web
publishing.
Jul 24 '08 #6
smcintyre wrote:
My code generator generates xhtml 1.0. I've been asked a couple times
why - I choose xhtml 1.0 because all the XML parsers, libraries and
tools available should work perfectly with it (and have so far). As
generated code, the fact that I have all those tools at my disposal is
important. As I understand from some quick reads at W3C, html 5 will
extend xhtml 1.0, but not necessarily xhtml 1.1. So until that's a
completed, stable and approved standard, I'm using xhtml 1.0.
--
Shaun
But while the libraries and tools work perfectly, some browsers (like
IE) don't.

XML was meant for a way to communicate M2M, not for browsers.
Unfortunately, some idiot, in their grandiose scheme, though it would be
great to merge XML and HTML.

Fortunately, browser developers didn't necessarily agree.

HTML 4.01 strict is much better.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
==================
Jul 25 '08 #7
Scripsit Michael Stemper:
I'm afraid that I don't see superscripts and subscripts as merely
presentational (although I do certainly admit a presentational
aspect).
You're in good company. The W3C consortium and the Unicode consortium
agree with you here, and so do I. Check
http://www.w3.org/TR/unicode-xml/ (Unicode in XML and other Markup
Languages) if in doubt.
I've written a lot of pages on various mathematical topics, and can
tell you that there's a big difference between "a-sub-2" and
"a-squared".
Not to mention my favorite simple case: 10<sup>3</supis not the same
as 103 or merely a typographic variant thereof.

However, _some_ use of superscripts and subscripts is basically
stylistic, as e.g. in 1<sup>st</sup(= first) in English. People who
wrote HTML specs never understood this difference - or maybe they
pretended to have not noticed it.

Superscripting or subscripting should be regarded as semantically
significant except in cases where the opposite can be proved or seen
immediately. It would, in particular, be a gross error to replace <sup>
and <submarkup by semantically meaningless markup, <span>, and the use
of style sheets, even though this may superficially give the impression
of working, when CSS is "on".

(Quite apart from this, the rendering of superscripts and subscripts
often needs CSS help, i.e. the default rendering of <supand <sub>
should often be tuned using CSS properties like vertical-align,
font-size, and line-height.)

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Jul 25 '08 #8
Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
Not to mention my favorite simple case: 10<sup>3</supis not the same
as 103 or merely a typographic variant thereof.
10<sup>3</supis an ersatz for 10³.

I'm not arguing that superscript and subscript cannot be used to indicate
a particular change in meaning - just that the existing <suband <sup>
elements are not "semantic" in the same sense that <qor <emare.

Were the heading tags <h1to <h6not to exist, it could be claimed that
a use of <bto mark up headings proves that <bis a non-presentational
element. But <h1to <h6do exist, any uses of <bto mark up headings
(except perhaps is we need a seventh-level heading in a very rare
situation) is considered non-semantic and presentational.

If HTML elements like <exponentand <atom-countexisted, I imagine that
you would not be defending the presence of <supand <subin the
language.

<b>, <i>, <tt>, <sub>, <supand their ilk can be used to mark up text
which is semantically different from the surrounding text, but this usage
is only tolerated because of the lack of true semantic elements that
would fulfil the purpose. They are presentational elements being used
semantically because there is no other element to do the job.

<i class="ship">Ship's Name</iis no better semantically than <span
class="ship">Ship's Name</span-- it just has a nicer fallback rendering
in non-CSS browsers.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.24.4-1mnbcustom-g5n1, up 43 days, 19:08.]

Olympics Monkey
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/0...lympic-monkey/
Aug 4 '08 #9
On 4 Aug, 12:32, Toby A Inkster <usenet200...@tobyinkster.co.uk>
wrote:
Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
Not to mention my favorite simple case: 10<sup>3</supis not the same
as 103 or merely a typographic variant thereof.

10<sup>3</supis an ersatz for 10³.

I'm not arguing that superscript and subscript cannot be used to indicate
a particular change in meaning - just that the existing <suband <sup>
elements are not "semantic" in the same sense that <qor <emare.
As a further supporting example, what does 123<sup>000,000</sup>
mean? It's archaic typography, but it certainly doesn't mean the same
as 123 ^ 0. Semantics are only useful if they're reliably
communicable, and this meaning for <supisn't.
Aug 4 '08 #10
Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:32:15 +0100 from Toby A Inkster <usenet200807
@tobyinkster.co.uk>:
Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
Not to mention my favorite simple case: 10<sup>3</supis not the same
as 103 or merely a typographic variant thereof.

10<sup>3</supis an ersatz for 10³.
Indeed it is. But why depend on styles? I should think 10&sup3; is
the right way to do it. I can't imagine any Web browser *not*
knowing how to display the ³, character 179, but if one is really
worried there's always 10^3.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you
Aug 6 '08 #11
In article <MP************************@news.individual.net> , Stan Brown <th************@fastmail.fmwrites:
>Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:32:15 +0100 from Toby A Inkster <us**********@tobyinkster.co.uk>:
>Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
Not to mention my favorite simple case: 10<sup>3</supis not the same
as 103 or merely a typographic variant thereof.

10<sup>3</supis an ersatz for 10³.

Indeed it is. But why depend on styles? I should think 10&sup3; is
the right way to do it.
That's fine when the exponent is "3". What about when it's "0.3010",
or "-Rt/L", or "n+k"? I doubt that there's a specialized symbol for
every possible exponent.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
The name of the story is "A Sound of Thunder".
It was written by Ray Bradbury. You're welcome.
Aug 6 '08 #12

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