The answer to the “15 advantages” of XHTML and 2 questions to readers

For hotheads: cool off immediately. I am for standards and make out validly. But I'm not for the standards for the same reason as you. Do not like it - pass by, do not read further. For adequate people:

I found an article about 15 advantages of XHTML (http://www.i2r.ru/static/476/out_23437.shtml). The author writes: "I just want to familiarize the reader with the indisputable advantages that CSS layout has." Consider these "undeniable" benefits.

1. XHTML is the current published hypertext markup standard that has replaced HTML.

So what? Is this an advantage? This is just a fact. What is the advantage for the company that owns the site, say, in the coming year after launch?

2. XHTML is more consistent than HTML, which reduces the likelihood of errors.

What does “more consistent” mean? The probability of errors does not depend on the language, but on the person.

3. New browsers “love” XHTML (in particular, XHTML 1.0). Because It provides additional features not available in HTML and has clear syntax.

Is this an advantage? What does “love” mean? In what form is this expressed? What are the benefits and how does this “love” give? What exactly is the “fuzzy” syntax of HTML?

4. XHTML is a subset of the XML language, which can now significantly expand the formatting capabilities of documents, and in the future will make full use of all new, possibly still not invented or unapproved technologies.

OK, he is a subset. This is probably cool. What is the specific advantage?

5. XHTML is part of a family of Web standards (which also includes CSS and W3C DOM), which allows you to control the appearance and behavior of the page on different platforms, browsers and devices.

Cool that he is part of the family. About standards was in paragraph 1, so it’s already pulled for the sake of a beautiful figure. Interestingly, before XHTML could not control? How then did the sites do? Or now they can? Then why is there so much torment that it looks the same in different browsers with a more or less complex design?

6. XHTML open the way to the world of metadata, which, it can be argued with a high degree of probability, will allow future search engines to more correctly and accurately process data in XHTML documents (read the site pages).

How poetic! They open the way. And what does this give site owners here and now? And in HTML, I could not use meta tags? Could. Search engines amicably scored on them.

7. XHTML allows you to change the order of content in a document, which also gives its advantages in search engine optimization.

Well, wherever it went.

8. XHTML improves site accessibility for a wider audience of readers, such as people with visual impairments or coordination. This means that in practice, screen readers will not be confused when they see a tag in the body of the document and try to display its contents as some kind of tabular information. There will also be an opportunity to fully and most importantly comfortably use the site even in the absence of a mouse.

I will accept only for humanistic reasons. In Russia, here and now it does not matter for most sites. The audience is not the same. It makes no difference to those who sell cars or computer games whether, in addition to 500,000 visitors, they will read a couple more from the Braille terminal.

9. XHTML increases the availability of the site also for a wider range of user agents: PDAs, mobile phones, digital projectors, and other devices with access to the web. This means that there is no longer a need to create several versions of the site, as one XHTML template is taken, to which various stylesheets are applied upon request.

I do not think this is correct. If I exit the PDA via GPRS, I don’t want to load the entire page, so that later using CSS it removes the excess from the already loaded one. I want not to load too much for me and consider it correct to make separate versions with adapted content and navigation optimized for traffic for PDAs and mobiles.

10. XHTML eliminates the need to create a separate version of the page for printing, because when printing a document, it is also possible to set a separate style. This advantage, as well as the advantage in paragraph 6 of inaccessible tabular markup, since pre-formatting is already created in the body of the document.

Sorry moa, this is how you do the markup.

11. XHTML + CSS can significantly reduce the weight of the document. Thus, you significantly reduce the load on the server, communication channels and speed up the delivery of the finished document to the user. This is achieved due to the fact that the XHTML template does not contain markup elements, because they are rendered CSS file. For a more visual confirmation of this argument, let us turn to an example. Usually the difference between XHTML + CSS and HTML + CSS (tabular) templates is from 300 to 500 percent in favor of XHTML + CSS, in some cases it can be more. Imagine an imaginary site with a total daily traffic of 10,000 unique visitors. We make it up first in a classic tabular way. We get - the size of the HTML template is 20 Kb with a style file of 5 Kb. So, for the first time, the website issued to the user's browser caches all images, scripts delivered to external files and style files, i.e. CSS files. Also, in the calculations, we will take for truth that the site design (CSS file) will not be subject to change during the year and will not require reloading. Scripts and images can not be taken into account, because they will not affect the final result. (20 Kb * 10000 * 365 + 5 * 10000) / 1024 = 71337 Mb or 71.3 GB of traffic during the calendar year. We make up the same site in XHTML + CSS using CSS layout. The output is XHTML, which is 5 Kb and CSS is 10 Kb (here it should be noted that the size of the CSS file usually increases due to the fact that all the data on the formatting and visual presentation of the document is transferred to the CSS file). We will carry out the calculation. (5 Kb * 10000 * 365 + 10 * 10000) / 1024 = 17919.9 Mb or 18 GB of traffic. In this example, the savings are 71.3 GB - 18 GB = 53.3 GB! Comments are redundant.

Ho ho I saw many examples when layout on layers without tables took up more space. Want some examples? Ask Yandex.

12. XHTML, due to the removal of elements and instructions for processing the document into an external file, allows you to download content to the user's browser as quickly as possible, and as he proceeds to read it, the design of the site will continue to load. This allows, without waiting for the page to fully load, to decide whether the information provided is significant, or whether to leave the page and continue searching for information on other sites.

I could also use CSS in HTML. And with tables even. Item not counted.

13. XHTML code is more logical and simple, therefore it is much easier to understand it for an HTML encoder who did not write the page code.

Depends on who writes the code.

14. XHTML allows, having one template, to connect to it an infinite number of styles that cardinally change its appearance without a single editing of the template itself. This is achieved by manipulating the free block layout of the content as opposed to a rigidly defined table.

Are there concrete examples when it was necessary to do this on a real commercial site and did not have to make a single edit in the template?

15. XHTML is correctly processed by old browsers, which reduces the obstacles to its use. And in new ones, due to proper CSS support, you can achieve incredible results.

Yes? IE3 NN4? :-) Just kidding. Here are the results. Businesses need not “incredible results”, but tangible financial ones. ;-)

Questions to readers

What advantages do you see:
1. For business, site owners
2. For yourself as developers

Tags:

• XHTML
• CSS
• HTML
• standards
• validity
• layout
• cross-browser compatibility