If you are interested in HTML5 then you should read Dive Into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim.
Interesting explanation of Load/Unload event handlers and how they relate to the operation of the Page Cache.
Jim Ray on Chrome Frame, a new IE plugin from Google which swaps out IE's entire HTML/CSS/JavaScript engine and replaces it with Chrome's version of WebKit.
Prompted by confused reactions to the official announcement of W3C to stop working on the development of XHTML 2, Smashing Magazine has published a good comic strip called Misunderstanding Markup.
Ryan Paul on Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate.
Google bets big on HTML 5.
Interview with Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification.
Faruk Ates has written a good blog post about IE8 and the X-UA-Compatibility situation, which is rather complex.
Steven Noonan recently posted Acid 3 is out! IE 5.5 beats IE 7. Since then he has been updating the post as the WebKit development team worked on improving the score achieved by WebKit nightly builds - yesterday they reached 100%. The leading contender as far as development versions are concerned is Opera with 77% while Internet Explorer is trailing the field with 18%. Safari (WebKit) also achieves the highest score of any released browser, with Konqueror in second place and various versions of IE taking the last seven places.
I have just expanded this page by incorporating information from a couple of other pages which I have now deleted.
The SitePoint CSS Reference seems like a useful resource for anyone struggling with Cascading Style Sheets.
Maciej Stachowiak gives his opinion on the IE8 version targeting switch, and how such an mechanism is unnecessary and undesirable for the future of WebKit.
Opera recently filed an antitrust compliant with the EU against Microsoft. The complaint describes how Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by tying its browser, Internet Explorer, to the Windows operating system and by hindering interoperability by not following accepted Web standards.
Any IE users should check out the Internet Explorer is dangerous page at Web Devout.
There was a good article on The future of web standards published today on The B-List.
HTML 5 has been under development since 2004 and what interests me is that unlike previous versions of HTML and XHTML, HTML 5 is being defined in terms of the Document Object Model. This means that the language itself can be defined independently of the syntax. Thus an HTML 5 document can be written using either the HTML serialisation or the XML serialisation. See this Preview of HTML 5.
Yet another beware of XHTML article, this one at Web Devout. It doesn't contain much I didn't already know and has not convinced me to stop serving this site as XHTML.
My XHTML pages are now XHTML Basic 1.1 and the only correct way to serve them is as application/xhtml+xml (I operate an "eat what you're given policy" and browsers that don't like it can lump it). For people serving XHTML 1.0 the spec allows for it to be served as either application/xhtml+xml or text/html, and there are various content negotiation techniques to serve it with a different mime type to different browsers.
On July 13th W3C announced the advancement of XHTML Basic 1.1 to Candidate Recommendation with the following statement:
The specification adds four new features for small devices which are the language's primary users. Version 1.1 is intended to be the convergence of the XHTML Basic 1.0 W3C Recommendation for mobile devices, released in coordination with the WAP Forum in 2000, and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) XHTML Mobile profile. Implementation feedback is welcome through 31 August.
X/HTML 5 Versus XHTML 2 comparison.
Some interesting discus ion in comments on The White Pebble by Sam Ruby. It is mainly related to draft specifications known as HTML5 and XHTML5 under development by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group WHATWG.
The Openwave Developer Network has a good guide to developing content for mobile devices titled Best Practises in XHTML Design.
The Web Standards Project has a useful HTML Verses XHTML page. They also maintain the Acid2 Browser Test.
XHTML 1.0 is a reformulation of HTML 4 in XML 1.0, released as a W3C recommendation on 2000-01-26. So where do things stand over six years later? At first sight it may seem that it has been a bit of a flop. Microsoft Internet Explorer is still without XHTML support, and that has clearly held things back. On the other hand, the other significant browsers do support XHTML.
Much has been said on the subject of XHTML adoption. I now have a pretty good idea of the arguments for and against, but rather than rehash them here I will just refer to a recent blog entry by maciej on Surfin' Safari titled Understanding HTML, XML and XHTML. Various options are considered but under "Best Practises" maciej concludes:
On today's web, the best thing to do is to make your document HTML4 all the way. Full XHTML processing is not an option, so the best choice is to stick consistently with HTML4.
I switched to full XHTML processing for my site three months ago and I am sticking with my decision - why did maciej and I come to different conclusions based on the same facts? Well his only reason for rejecting the full XHTML option was the inability of Microsoft Internet Explorer to handle it. He said "Unless you're willing to completely lock out IE users, you probably don't want to take this option." The thing is, I am willing to lock out IE users:-) Having said that, much of the traffic to my site results from Google searches, and Google helpfully translates my XHTML into perfectly usable HTML for the benefit of IE users, so I am not completely locking them out.
www.zenatode.org.uk Ian Gregory 2010