Which languages should I be using?

Am I in the past with HTML and CSS?

[ShepMode]

I would like to keep up to date with website design technologies and I am worried that I am using out of date languages. Currently I use HTML with CSS and PHP for server side scripting.

Should I be using XHTML, XML or some other new language that I haven't studied yet?

[hartlandcat]

There's no point in "using a language because it's there". Use the languages thare are appropriate to your website. If HTML with CSS and PHP is fine for your site, then keep using it. If you want to show off, use XHTML instead of HTML. Don't bother with XML unless you seriously believe that your site would benefit from it. Remember that browser support is not too good when it comes to XML.

To give an example for the "using a language because it's there" comment, I know a woman that is making static pages using ASP. Although ASP can be good for some things (well... maybe not), it's just inapropriate to use for static pages.

[g1smd]

HTML and CSS are still current. PHP is great for dynamic content, or for just doing simple things like including the same bit of code in multiple pages. CSS allows simple presentation changes with one easy edit in one file. HTML when pared down to basic semantic tags (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, ol, ul, li, table, tr, td, form, img, a, etc) without presentation (font, b, i, etc) makes for a quicker to load site, and easier search engine indexing too. Just make sure that you send your pages through the HTML [validator.w3.org...] and CSS [jigsaw.w3.org...] validators to make sure you reduced your errors as much as possible.

Many people think that XHTML just involves closing single tags like <br /> and <img src="file.png" alt="text" /> etc. There is more to it than that. One thing to bear in mind is the MIME type you serve the pages with. Using the, supposedly, correct one makes IE choke. Then there is the DOCTYPE declaration; some of these have issues with CSS in some browsers.

In my opinion, stick with valid HTML 4.01 (transitional or strict - you choose) and CSS 2 coding. You can't go wrong with that, and your pages will be understood by any browser made in the next decade or more. Older pages using "Tag Soup" or proprietory M$ extensions may well be unrenderable in non-M$ browsers of the future (and knowing at how bad M$ are at following even their own "standards" they'll also probably break in future M$ products too).