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- Building according to web standards
- XHTML 1.0
- Advantages and disadvantages
Building according to web standards: Advantages and disadvantages of XHTML
The use of good, structural markup in compliance with the rules of HTML 4.01 is quite a challenge for web developers. The use of markup complying to the rules of XHTML takes this a few steps further still. To help you make a well-considered choice between using HTML and XHTML, a number of advantages and disadvantages of XHTML are discussed below.
Advantages
- Sustainability.
Web applications tend towards XML. Using XHTML now instead of HTML makes any future conversion of the website easier. - Extensibility.
Owing to the extensibility of XML, XHTML documents can be supplemented with other forms of markup, MathML (Math Markup Language) SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) or your own markup variants, thanks to the use of namespaces. Browsers that support such applications, however, are few and far between. - Compatibility.
Because XHTML documents are written in compliance with the rules of XML, XML-processing programmes can effortlessly convert an XHTML file to another format (e.g. PDF, RSS or RTF). - Efficiency of processing applications.
Once browsers support XHTML documents and the strict rules of XML, they will become quicker thanks to shorter error processing routines. At present, a great deal of the processing power of a browser is still spent on liberal error processing of documents containing malformed HTML markup. This is the price of a quickly but chaotically expanding Internet.
Disadvantages
- Limited practical use.
At present, there are hardly any browsers that offer benefits when receiving and processing XHTML documents. The most frequently used browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer) does not even support XHTML.
The above-mentioned benefits are largely theoretical and occasionally practical (as in the case of server-side processing of XHTML to other formats, or testing the markup for validity).
