I don’t comment on things I really don’t know about; so it gets on my nerves when I hear/read ‘expert’ opinions from questionable sources.

In the boxing and martial arts world, we would take them into the ring and ‘fix’ things up rather quickly … not something as easily done in the Web world, where people can hide behind semantics.

Can you read? XHTML is NOT now, since the vast majority of users on the web today use a browser that simply does not read XHTML - IE6.

Yes, you should make your HTML pages follow basic XHTML rules like closing tags and keeping the tags in lower case but you should still be using HTML not XHTML.

The many devices argument does not fly either because of two very important realities:

1. Very few people use devices other than traditional web browsers - not even close to 1% last time I checked.

2. Most devices will read HTML if it is well formed.

You also fail to address another very important point - DOM scripting and thus AJAX is made much more difficult when you use XHTML.

You’ve been brain washed by the zealots and haven’t really looked at the true facts. I suppose your web pages are riddled with CSS hacks … have fun changing your code when IE7 comes out.

Oh, and what about your clients … are you going to be calling them to let them know you’re going to be updating their websites for free because you made the mistake of using hacks?

What do you say of all those authors who said that using hacks was the thing to do … are you emailing them, pointing out how foolish that was?

NOTE: I was the ONLY one who publicly came out and said that using hacks was a really bad idea because hacks could break things - this is way before the IE7 reality came to light and way before Slashdot screwed up …

Do know why the famous web standards zealots did not pick up on this, and my stupid lazy self did? Because most of these people are web designers and not experienced web developers (software developers) … any junior programmer would have been taught the basic skills to see the holes in the web standards movement.
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It’s funny to watch web designers thinking of themselves as system architects, when it is clear they have no idea what they’re talking about …

Why don’t you learn some programming and spend a few years writing software. Then (with luck,) you’ll finally SEE how the whole XHTML argument is silly, as is the culture of hackery developed by your heroes … the blind leading the blind.

XHTML is now, and it’s the future - it’s easy to make standard HTML pages XHTML compatible, and provides many more devices with access to your pages, than if they were just standard HTML.

Regarding the suggested DocType, then the author seems to be in denial. At a minimum you want to be using a transitional XHTML doc-type.

I could go on about some of the other poor advise, but I would strongly suggest getting a number of other perspectives before adhering to any of the advise provided by the author on this page.

Thanks for the kind words.

About Creating Killer websites: This book was great in its day but I would not suggest you buy it now … it’s too old now. You can find up to date information on this site though ..

PS: David Siegal wrote Creating Killer websites, I’ve taken over watch of the site for 3 years now.

Thanks,

Stef

I think your blog will enlighten us more than the CSS gurus who are shouting for the standard based designs.

Nice blog you have here. Thanks!