10 years ago the XHTML 1.0 recommendation was published as a Technical Recommendation (aka "web standard") by the W3C.
Happy 10th birthday XHTML 1.0 !
But in the light of HTML5, what's next for XHTML 1.0 ? Oblivion?
Not nescessarily if you ask me :)
But let's start at the beginning...
To me XHTML will always be "the standard that fixed things".
I never could get comfortable with the habits of HTML4-parsers to insert elements I hadn't written in the source code into "my" DOM by themselves, and don't get me started over the pains of reading student markup while trying to figure out if this missing end-tag had been omitted deliberately, or by accident (although it was a bit amusing to see eg. the concept that <P> actually was'nt a "double <BR> tag" but the start tag of a paragraph element finally sink in in a student)
XHTML made markup so much easier to teach, and so much easier to handle programatically than the "tag soup" of badly formed HTML4.
Now, the fact that there were three variations of XHTML 1.0 still was a bit of a nuiscance of course - not to mention that the "YSOD" ("Yellow Screen Of Death") - the error page that was shown as a result of an XML syntax error in an XHTML page - made "proper handling" of XHTML pretty darned difficult in practice at times (I never could get myself to enjoy being exposed to the perils of serving XHTML properly - but that's another story).
Nevertheless!
For a few years I actually served valid and well formed XHTML to my visitors regardless of whether their browser needed it served as "text/html" or if it could handle XHTML "properly" served as "application/xhtml+xml" - and it was good.
For me.
My visitors - of course - seldom or never knew the difference, but that's also another story. :)
This practice of adapting the MIME-type would nowadays probably be labeled as "serving polyglot XHTML" - but back in the day I didn't worry about future buzzwords, I just viewed it as a convenient practice in anticipation of the next level of XHTML - and it simply worked (even in MSIE).
Alas.
Today XHTML2 is but a memory (thank God!) and the raging battles over "HTML5"/"WHATWG HTML"/"HTML without a version number"/"Next HTML"/Whateveryoucallitthisweek has taken over the markup spotlight, so it is (perhaps) easily forgotten that XHTML 1 is still a very much viable option for new markup projects - at least it's easilly forgotten if you listen too much to the loudest HTML5 evangelists.
But it is still there - and XHTML 1.0 is IMHO still very much alive and kicking after the first ten years, and it will most likely be around for many a year to come.
Why? - you ask - don't you believe that HTML5 will sweep the floor of all previous competition?
Well I sort of got me an epiphany earlier today when it dawned on me that solid XHTML 1.0 compliance is actually being advertised to developers as one of the (many) interesting features of the upcoming Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 (that is currently in Beta).
Not HTML5 - but valid XHTML 1.0.
... In one of the most selling Microsoft products of all times...
Regardless of your opinion about Microsoft - that to me, if nothing else, is a sign that XHTML 1.0 is still a mature alternative to the bleeding edge of HTML5.
... and that is pretty much the best "birthday present" for XHTML 1.0 that I can think of.
So happy 10th birthday XHTML 1.0. May you live and prosper for many a year to come and perhaps even evolve into a modular, extensible alternative to the monolithic closedness of HTML5.
You were considered elegant by many once - and you still are very much elegant to me.
Cheers! :)
