Thread: Anyone purely self-taught?

Originally Posted by maxorator

Actually I am totally satisfied with Windows XP, which is the only piece of Microsoft software I use.

Well... at least it's been updated with service packs to patch bugs and security fixes... But it's still buggy ;(

Originally Posted by Elysia

Well... at least it's been updated with service packs to patch bugs and security fixes... But it's still buggy ;(

The definition of software already says that software is buggy. But anyway, I haven't encountered any bugs that I'd remember on my XP machine during last 2 years. Stop whining about bugs that don't exist.

How about networking stopping to function, Windows throwing a tantrum and refusing to install drivers, etc?
They do so exist.

XHTML 1.1 Strict pwns.

It also doesn't exist. All XHTML 1.1 is strict. The three variants exist only for 1.0.

CSS3 isn't even finished, so don't blame any browser for not supporting it fully.

Originally Posted by Elysia

Now, if only IE8 can support XHTML. I don't know if it does.

It's supposed to level out with Opera and Firefox support of XHTML 1.0, but not 1.1.

Note that despite the criticism IE7 was a giant leap towards standards conformance. Still not entirely satisfying, but IE7 definitely shown the idea of W3C Standards support is finally ingrained in Microsoft's development team minds. Gone are the horrid days of browser dependency and we just need to wait a little more for IE6 to be completely wiped out without even the right to a decent funeral.

Code:

Anyway, it can't handle CSS2 nor CSS3

What are you talking about? IE7 already offers a solid support for CSS 2.1. Certainly it's not something to be completely proud of, but IE7 also made a huge step into CSS conformance. IE 8 is going to fully support CSS 2.1. Earlier tests revealed IE8 to finally pass the Acid2 test and join Opera and Safari.

Ironically enough Firefox 3 still fails this test. Apparently there was one one nightly build who managed to pass. But later changes changed this again.

As for CSS3 well... no one will support it until it is finished.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Anyway, it can't handle CSS2 nor CSS3

What are you talking about? IE7 already offers a solid support for CSS 2.1. Certainly it's not something to be completely proud of, but IE7 also made a huge step into CSS conformance. IE 8 is going to fully support CSS 2.1. Earlier tests revealed IE8 to finally pass the Acid2 test and join Opera and Safari.

I think the beta fails on this perhaps. Seeing how buggy the thing is, it wouldn't surprise me if it rendered all pages wrong at the moment. Of course this will change when the final release is out.

Huh? My Firefox 3 nightlies pass Acid2. Not booted into the experimental system, so no screenshots now, but I specifically checked this.

As for XHTML 1.1 suppport, I'm not entirely sure how it is going. I think that all browsers without exception range is very-poor-to-no support. Let us not forget that 1.1 is not intended to be served as HTML, contrary to 1.0. This, I believe, forces companies into not being so happy to include full support to XHTML 1.1 for reasons of backwards compatibility.

On the other hand 1.1 modules seem to demand a radical change in the renderer design. I'm not entirely sure of exactly how XHTML 1.1 differs from 1.0. I didn't bother myself with the specifications much. All I did on a few occasions when feeling bored was to skim through the document.

The thing is that Berners-Lee himself is not happy with the state of XHTML adoption. I see this as a sign 1.1 - being still a working draft - is going sooner or later to be either largely revamped or dropped in favor of yet another XHTML transitional specification.

Originally Posted by CornedBee

Huh? My Firefox 3 nightlies pass Acid2. Not booted into the experimental system, so no screenshots now, but I specifically checked this.

Hmm... I don't have it on my system. My source was wrong then or maybe he tested it with some nightly build which didn't. Thanks for the correction.

HTML 5 and its XHTML serialization will probably displace XHTML 1.1 and XHTML 2.0 pretty much completely.

XHTML should gain some more publicity once IE supports it.
The reason XHTML is not so widely used is due to Microsoft's IE can't handle it and serving XHTML in HTML defeats its purpose.
But... we'll see.

That reminds me...

You'd think there ought to be less entropy in W3C published drafts. HTML 5 completely confuses me, CornedBee. Do you think that it has contributed the the general lack of interest on part of browser vendors towards XHTML past 1.0?

Just went and confirmed that Fox3 passes. Your source has a buggy nightly, weird settings, or an extension that messes things up.

The standards have grown historically. HTML 4.01 was the last HTML standard. Then they published XHTML 1.0, which was just a reformulation of HTML 4.01 using XML syntax. XHTML 1.0 doesn't even define element semantics, instead making a normative reference to HTML 4.01. XHTML 1.0 also contains the famous Appendix C, guidelines for serving XHTML 1.0 as text/html.

XHTML 1.1 breaks with HTML and defines element semantics on its own. It also uses the XHTML modularization so it's conceptually split into parts. This has no practical effect. XHTML 1.1 has no Appendix C and must not be served as text/html.

XHTML 2.0 completely breaks with everything. It defines a new set of elements with new or revised semantics. It was a nice attempt, but too radical. It was developed pretty much under exclusion of the public and at a crawling pace.

Meanwhile, unhappy with the processes and speed of the W3C, people went ahead and formed their own concortium, the WHAT WG. They started on Web Forms 2.0, an attempt to standardize a set of features in HTML, CSS and JavaScript they deemed necessary for web applications. From this work, eventually the first HTML 5 draft emerged, under the motto of "keep compatibility".

Eventually, the W3C realized that nobody cared about XHTML 2, hardly anyone adopted XHTML 1.1, and a lot of pages that claimed to be XHTML 1.0 were really HTML. The standards had failed. So they dissolved the HTML working group and reformed it from scratch. Using WHAT WG HTML 5 as a basis, they're now writing W3C HTML 5.

Originally Posted by CornedBee

Eventually, the W3C realized that nobody cared about XHTML 2, hardly anyone adopted XHTML 1.1, and a lot of pages that claimed to be XHTML 1.0 were really HTML. The standards had failed.

I wonder why...

Originally Posted by Elysia

I wonder why...

Well, I actually have no idea why. XHTML 1.1 and 2 make sense. These force development teams to scrap years of development on their rendering engines. No browser support or little browser support simply means no one uses them, with a few exceptions where documents are being served in private intranets.

But if it is correct XHMTL 1.0 failed (I object to that), it failed on the user base side. And this is not new to anyone since HTML in any version or shape has always been poorly adopted by the web development community - exactly the reason why XHTML was designed.

I will have to take a look at HTML 5. But if it shares the same SGML bloodline of HTML 4, I don't see how it will bring some order into web developers.