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View Full Version : XHTML Modularization and extensibility -- is this a good idea?


me'
01-12-2004, 06:06 PM
1.1. Why Build XHTML Modules?

XHTML is more than just a recasting of HTML into XML. It is also an extensible architecture that permits the ready definition of new document types. The W3C envisions that client manufacturers, document authors, and content providers may all use this architecture to define document types that are specific to their needs. The XHTML Modularization specification defines a collection of modules and a framework that make the definition of these new document types relatively easy. [quote source (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-building/introduction.html#s_intro_building)]

It seems to me the last time people started adding little bits to a language was with the browser wars &mdash; browser makers adding little proprietary tags into HTML, that ended up with such nasties as <marquee> finding their way into the general web.

Sure, the very idea of XML is to let authors write their own documents, and as long as none of these made-up tags that only work in IE find their way into the DTDs there's no problem, right?

Well, I'm just wary that Microsoft (and possibly others) will sieze the opportunity, and induce a whole new wave of interwoven content and style (among other things) into the markup world.

Roy Sinclair
01-12-2004, 07:02 PM
With XML and CSS (which is a superset of xHTML) you can already define a totally new document type using any kind of arbitrary tags and yet style and present it in a browser as if it were an HTML page. The idea behind xHTML modules is to document any new sets of tags so that anyone else looking at code using the tags for that module will be able to understand their usage.

The evil behind what happened to HTML was in allowing presentational information to be included as tags or as properties of tags. Once CSS was defined to allow that presentational information to be removed from the HTML most of the tags/properties that figure heavily in the browser wars were made obsolete.

me'
01-12-2004, 09:38 PM
Indeed, they were made obselete according to the w3c, but how many times do you see <font> being used in web pages? I'm sorry, but these casulities of war still pollute the web.

Roy Sinclair
01-12-2004, 10:02 PM
Those obsolete constructs will continue to exist and be used by backwards developers as long as browsers still accept them. Once we finally get some new browsers that reject junk tags we'll finally see progress in cleaning up web pages but until then they're going to be common and people will still use them no matter how much you tell them to stop.

But that has nothing to do with developing new xHMTL modules because the xHTML spec has already defined those items as obsolete and indeed removed them from the latest specs.

Alex Vincent
01-13-2004, 04:40 AM
Clarification:

HTML 4.01 deprecated the presentation-oriented HTML tags. The HTML 4.01 Transitional Document Type Definition (DTD) still supports them. The HTML 4.01 Strict DTD does not.

XHTML 1.0 is HTML 4.01 rewritten as XML, with equivalent Strict, Transitional, and Frameset DTDs.

XHTML 1.1 is based on XHTML 1.0 Strict, and thus, does not have the presentation-oriented HTML tags.

My point is that they haven't been removed from XHTML 1.0 Transitional, because they were not removed from HTML 4.01 Transitional. Moreover, there is no anticipated obsoleting of XHTML 1.0 or HTML 4.01. XHTML 1.1 did not obsolete either of these specifications, to my knowledge.

Getting back to the original question (so as not to make this thread a copy of a discussion already in XML thread):

In a sense, additional content is provided for via XML namespaces. They allow you to create your own language without polluting other, well-established languages.

Ultimately, though, there's not much we can do to stop a closed-source browser from supporting a given tag. You're welcome to e-mail the browser's owners at your leisure... (sarcasm not intended)

Roy Sinclair
01-14-2004, 06:51 PM
The W3C has a site discussing why they think it's a good idea to do modularization and what they expect it to be used to accomplish: http://www.webstandards.org/learn/askw3c/dec2003.html