This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
The Scoop on HTML, XML, XHTML, and HTML 5
In its early days, HTML was great because it allowed scientists to share information over the Internet in an efficient and relatively structured manner. It wasn't until later that graphical web browsers were created and HTML started being used to code more than scientific papers. HTML quickly went from a tidy little markup language for researchers to an online publishing language. After it was established that HTML could be jazzed up for graphical browsing, the creators of web browsers went crazy by adding lots of nifty features to the language. Although these new features were neat at first, they compromised the original design of HTML and introduced inconsistencies when it came to how browsers displayed web pages; new features worked on only one browser or another, and you were out of luck if you happened to be running the wrong browser. HTML started to resemble a bad remodeling job on a—a job done by too many contractors and without proper planning. As it turns out, some of the browser-specific features created during this time have now been adopted as standards while others have been dropped completely.
As with most revolutions, the birth of the Web was very chaotic, and the modifications to HTML reflected that chaos. Over the years, a significant effort has been made to reel in the inconsistencies of HTML and restore some order to the language. The problem with disorder in HTML is that it results in web browsers having to guess at how a page is to be displayed, which is not a good thing. Ideally, a web page designer should be able to define exactly how a page is to look and have it look the same regardless of what kind of browser or operating system someone is using. Better still, a designer should be able to define exactly what a page means and have that page look consistent across different browsers and platforms. This utopia is still off in the future somewhere, but a markup language called XML (Extensible Markup Language) began to play a significant role in leading us toward it.
XML is a general language used to create specific languages, such as HTML. It might sound a little strange, but it really just means that XML provides a basic structure and set of rules to which any markup language must adhere. Using XML, you can create a unique markup language to describe just about any kind of information, including web pages. Knowing that XML is a language for creating other markup languages, you could create your own version of HTML using XML. You could even create a markup language called BCCML (Bottle Cap Collection Markup Language), for example, which you could use to create and manage your extensive collection of rare bottle caps. The point is that XML lays the ground rules for organizing information in a consistent manner, and that information can be anything from web pages to bottle caps.
You might be thinking that bottle caps don't have anything to do with the Web, so why mention them? The reason is that XML is not entirely about web pages. XML is actually broader than the Web in that it can be used to represent any kind of information on any kind of computer. If you can visualize all the information whizzing around the globe among computers, mobile phones, handheld computers, televisions, and radios, you can start to understand why XML has much broader applications than just cleaning up web pages. However, one of the first applications of XML is to restore some order to the Web, which is why XML is relevant to learning HTML.
If XML describes data better than HTML, does it mean that XML is set to upstage HTML as the markup language of choice for the Web? No. XML is not a replacement for HTML; it's not even a competitor of HTML. XML's impact on HTML has to do with cleaning up HTML. HTML is a relatively unstructured language that benefits from the rules of XML. The natural merger of the two technologies resulted in HTML's adherence to the rules and structure of XML. To accomplish this merger, a new version of HTML was formulated that follows the stricter rules of XML. The new XML-compliant version of HTML is known as XHTML. Fortunately for you, you'll actually be learning XHTML throughout this book since it is really just a cleaner version of HTML.
You might have heard about HTML 5, which is touted as the next web standard. It will be, but not for several years. When it does become a web standard, it will not render XHTML useless—HTML 5 is not a replacement for XHTML, but is a major revision of HTML 4. In other words, XHTML and HTML 5 can coexist on the web, and web browsers that currently support XHTML will also (one day) support HTML 5 as well.
The goal of this book is to guide you through the basics of web publishing, using XHTML and CSS as the core languages of those pages. However, whenever possible I will note elements of the languages that are not present in HTML 5, should you want to design your content for even further sustainability. If you gain a solid understanding of web publishing and the ways in which CSS works with the overall markup language of the page (be it XHTML or HTML 5), you will be in a good position if, in a few years, you decide you want to move from XHTML to HTML 5.