Whither HTML?
| Published date | 01 March 2004 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830410524611 |
| Date | 01 March 2004 |
| Pages | 99-105 |
| Author | Judith Wusteman |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Whither HTML?
Judith Wusteman
Reinventing HTML
Once HTML 4 was published, the HTML
Working Group closed for business. It was
assumed that developments in XML and the
increasing use of cascading style sheets (CSS)
would make further maturation of the standard
unnecessary. Six months later, the group was
re-formed and, nearly six years later, it is busy
producing controversial new versions of
HTML.
Where are we now?
What happened to reactivate the HTML
Working Group was the realisation that
HTML was going to be around for some time
after all and that an XML version might be a
good idea. It was perceived that such a version
might make it easier to repurpose content for
the variety of browser devices that was
beginning to appear. And so XHTML began its
evolution.
As defined in the XHTML 1.0 specification:
XHTML is a family of current and future
document types and modules that reproduce,
subset and extend HTML 4 (W3C, 2000a).
It has already gone through several versions
since XHTML 1.0 was initially published in
January 2000. The latter was simply HTML 4
reformulated in XML. It could be used with
XML software but would also operate in
HTML 4, conforming with user agents by
following some simple guidelines. In other
words, it was a route for entry to the XML
world but with backward compatibility.
The three ``flavours'' of XHTML 1.0 were
Strict, Transitional, and Frameset. The Strict
version aimed at separation of content and
presentation and was designed to be used in
conjunction with CSS. The Transitional
version turned a blind eye to some
presentational features, such as bgcolor, text
and link attributes in the body tag, and hence
catered for those browsers that could not
understand stylesheets. The Frameset version
was the least important of the three, as, by then,
The author
Judith Wusteman is based in the Department of Library
and Information Studies, University College Dublin, Dublin,
Ireland.
Keywords
Hypertext markup language, Extensible markup language,
Worldwide web, Development
Abstract
HTML has reinvented itself as an XML application. The
working draft of the latest version, XHTML 2.0, is causing
controversy due to its lack of backward compatibility and the
deprecation ± and in some cases disappearance ± of some
popular tags. But is this commotion distracting us from the
big picture of what XHTML has to offer? Where is HTML
going? And is it taking the Web community with it?
Electronic access
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About XML
Received 13 December 2003
Revised 14 December 2003
Accepted 15 December 2003
99
Library Hi Tech
Volume 22 .Number 1 .2004 .pp. 99-105
#Emerald Group Publishing Limited .ISSN 0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/07378830410524611
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