XHTML is not for Beginners

As web standards advocates, many of us participate in numerous online communities such as mailing lists, forums, newsgroups and even blogs (both our own and comments on others). In these communities, we often encounter beginners who are either just starting out with HTML, or have been doing HTML for a while, but are new to the concept of developing with standards.

Invariably, such beginners face the eternal question of HTML or XHTML; and today, I intend to answer this question (as it applies to beginners) once and for all. For experienced users, the answer may be different, this only applies to beginners and to those of us teaching them.

I don’t particularly want to start up the XHTML vs. HTML debate again, nor simply reiterate that XHTML as text/html is extremely harmful; and I must stress that both HTML and XHTML have their uses and it’s important to use the right tool for the job. But for beginners, there needs to be a clear answer with a clear learning path, and those of us teaching them need to be united in our position. For if beginners are hearing different answers from different parties, only confusion will result and we may end up losing them to dark side of the force forever.

Let me start off by saying that XHTML is not for beginners. We must start with HTML and have a clear learning path towards the future with XHTML. It has been argued, that since the future lies with XHTML (although that is yet to be seen), we should be teaching XHTML from the ground up. That sounds nice in theory, but the reality is that we’re still teaching in a predominately text/html environment, and the fact is: trying to teach XHTML under HTML (tag-soup) conditions is like trying to teach a child to swim by throwing them in the deep end and not realising they’re drowning until it’s too late. When it comes to XHTML: there is far too much for a beginner to learn, not to mention the significant issues of browser support, that we must simply accept that they’re not ready and teach them HTML instead.

XHTML is not merely HTML 4 in XML syntax, it comes packaged with all the XML handling requirements as well, with great big “Fragile” and “Handle with Care” stickers on the front of the box. Despite all the myths surrounding the ability to use XHTML as text/html and then simply make the switch to XML when browser support improves, there is significant evidence to show that XHTML developed in a text/html environment will not survive the transition to XML.

The sheer number of tag-soup pages claiming to be XHTML are a direct result of pushing it upon newcomers while leaving out all the extremely important details, most of which they won’t understand yet anyway, but do actually need to learn before using it. I won’t go into the details here, but these issues with XHTML include, among others, the following; and I guarantee that if you ask a beginner (who learned XHTML under HTML conditions) about any of them, they’ll look at you blankly, without a clue what your talking about.

ead more on: http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/12/xhtml-beginners