A question about DocType

HTML transitional, Xhtml 1.0 Strict, or Xhtml 1.1

[neophyte]

Hello All -

I've done a bit of reading lately on the internet regarding doctypes and need the opinions of the good people here.

For the past year+ I've been doc-typing my pages with XHTML 1.0 Strict - without any real reason why... when I started using this doctype it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, using Xhtml 1.0 strict has never given me any validation or display problems.

I've now hired a few coders to help me with my workload and I'm writing a programmers manual based upon the the coding style and project specifications I'd like to implement as a standard - but I'm not sure what doctype to standardize on.

What do the good folks here have to say on this topic ... and why?

Thanks to all in advance!

Neophyte

[neophyte]

Found my answer - should have searched WebmasterWorld first!

For others interested, see these links:

[webmasterworld.com...]

and

[webmasterworld.com...]

Great stuff!

Neophyte

[rocknbil]

Those are the ones, encyclo's the doc guy around here. :-)

doc-typing my pages with XHTML 1.0 Strict - without any real reason why

You are not alone, and this story may be amusing, albeit trite.

I recently considered a position at a large manufacturing company with a large (read: bloated corporate) Internet division. Their website is a mess, using XHTML 1.0 strict, and a valid doctype at that with the full URL. But the documents themselves completely ignore everything about that doctype, using nested tables within tables, rogue blocks of text with no markup, upper and lower case tags, and - get this - multiple sightings of font tags. I originally applied for the job just to talk with these guys to see if they would be interested in help on this.

I was interviewed by two corporate yes-men, heads of the Internet department, nice enough guys but obviously better at management skills than Internet work. When asked why they chose an XHTML 1.0 strict doctype, their eyes darted around like "who are you to ask US?" and one of them replied "Because it's the latest and most technologically advanced version of HTML."

At this point I knew there is no way on earth I would ever work for this company, even if I wanted to, so I went into the schpeil, about how XHTML is intended to be an extensible markup language, and if you're not doing any "extending" it's not even necessary. About how the promises of XHTML have fallen short, and in spite of all the portents of XHTML becoming a standard, HTML 5.0 is being considered. Especially since your developers are not coding to the XHTML 1.0 spec, it would be a lot easier for them to drop to a 4.01 strict, and - it would *almost* be valid code. Their eyes glazed over at, oh, two minutes.

I then explained that in *my* browsers, what I see is a chaotic mess with no organization (which it was) because by specifying XHTML 1.0 strict and coding six miles outside the spec, it breaks the entire document. I later sent screen captures as proof, their response was "wow, that's really weird. It look beautiful here."

I didn't get the job. . . . :-)

So you are not alone, one of the important things for us to do is question ourselves in EVERYTHING WE DO. If you don't, you wind up on the hiring side of a job interview and when asked, don't have an answer. :-)

[neophyte]

RockinBill -

Thanks for the amusing and insightful response.

Yes, considering all that I had read on those two webmasterworld threads, it looks like 4.01 strict is the doctype I'll begin using.

Thanks again,

Neophyte

[g1smd]

It is probably good that you didn't get the job.

They wouldn't have paid you what you were worth to get them out of the mess they are in.

I am interested to see the recent backlash against XHTML. I have never seen the need to move beyond HTML 4.01, and still can't.

(Spooky. That's the second time I have said that on here tonight.)

[Xapti]

Thanks for the story ,rocknbil.