albo - 6:05 pm on Nov 30, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm with SuzyUK on the XHTML vs HTML issue. For quite awhile I played the XHTML game, then did some reading.

It finally seemed silly to code things such as disabled="disabled" - code bloat. So, for all my sites. I ran quickly through BBEdit and globally converted back to HTML 4.01 strict. I'm with her and some of the other writers I've seen: XHTML is way overboard, and a dead path.

I agree with SuzyUK about b and i, too. While "italic" may not have a strictly "semantic" meaning, I think "bold" is a double-edged sword of sorts. It means, not only, bold thick print, but also, bold emphatic communication. B bold!

While I agree divitis is dangerous, a little div'ing is a good thing, of course... I've prepared for html5 with a few things like divs with ids like article, aside, header, footer, and the like. And I also like Andy Clarke's advice, using CSS3 features for excitement, so long as their lack of support on some browsers doesn't make the page fail.

As for SEO, I follow the sage advice of webmasterworld. I found a few of Brett's tricks in a book, that worked for one of my clients quite nicely this year. The client was very pleased.

And, doofus that I am, for another client, I finally got it through my thick head the benefit of STRICT html with external CSS. One client, within a two-week period, changed his mind 3 times about the skin: new version, old version, nope, new version again. (I just renamed the CSS.)