Birth, life and death of XHTML

Before XHTML was the egg, no no, the chicken, well ok it was HTML 4.01. HTML was good, flexible, practical, allowed developers to do many things (and to not closing them), and despite its shortcomings we were happy, web developers used the font tag to apply styles and web browsers interpreted what they wanted.

But then a new technology arrived, XML, allowing to create your own markup language, which means that you can create your own HTML (HTML is a programming language that works with labels, so that if I put a text between the labels and it will appear in bold).

With XML you could make your own and custom HTML, with the tags that pleased you, you might even have HTML in Spanish! <negrita>esto está en negrita</negrita>. World seemed to have no limits, XML would be a revolution in the web world, we didn’t had to confine ourselves in HTML, anything would be possible and happiness would emanate from source codes in form of bits, there were books sold like “Put XML in your life and achieve happiness” or “Learn to cook with XML”.

The euphoria spread between developers, HTML was dead, obsolete, for noobs, and the new system had to revolutionize everything… except for one little detail: the new markup language needed to use a scheme to be interpreted correctly by browsers that would establish the behavior of each label. In practice, nobody is that freak to create his own schema and markup language and it would be impractical because no one would know it and if you needed someone to incorporate in your project it would be a cost teaching your personal and unique language.

Then the aitchteeamelkillers from the World Wide Web Consortium created one of these schemes and a new markup language using XML technology that would be able to emulate HTML, and to make the step to the new technology simpler, 95% of the new language was exactly like the previous one, even his name was almost identical: XHTML 1.0 had born.

XHTML 1.0 emulated HTML using XML technology, which did nothing new, and also required to learn new things and somewhat complicated coding, but programmers were happy because it was a revolutionary new technology that would allow in future going to infinity and beyond, so they switched to this new technology saying that, being XML, it was more compatible with other technologies based on XML (which is true) and that the new standard would solve some problems of interpretation in browsers.

The W3C created three schemes to let each developer chose between them, the one known as Transitional allows XHTML code not pure and therefore more flexible, the other, strict, needs it totally correct and therefore is perhaps more advisable to use the first to avoid problems. Finally there is a scheme to use with frames, the frameset, but websites with frames passed away long ago.







Look at the source code of the websites you visit, you will surely find this code in the first line. If you notice, there is a path to a file hosted on w3.org, that is the “schema” that defines the behavior of the labels.

A few years after the creation of XHTML 1.0 the W3C decided to step forward and create the XHTML 2.0 with the idea of finally creating the desired and ultimate markup language that would be more logical, orderly, defined and perfect in a mathematical mind.

But it turned out that developers did not see it with good eyes, a change that brought nothing and also killed the beloved img tag making it an object tag. Oh my god! How dare them! Poor img tag that had accompanied us for so many years! Unforgivable.

The XHTML was mortally wounded, was no longer fashion and even began to seem uncool to use it, but if with all of this was not enough, a group of insensitive OldSchool fans who for years met in the shadows conspiring against XHTML decided it was time to launch a new idea to the world… HTML 5.0.

The developers community then recalled the good life we had when HTML didn’t told us what to do, in addition, HTML 5 was born with several new features like the geolocation system, the possibility of drawing with the canvas tag or to warm up food in the microwave.

HTML5 also brings new tags, such as section, header, footer or nav, but how cool! Whole life hoping to have those labels, and finally we will have them! Give HTML5 a hurray! HUUUUUURRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! And we also have an audio label, and video, and an open video standard!

HTML5 was very well welcomed by the developers community, designed to make our life easier while establishing standards and not to order everything in technical language but impractical as it had become XHTML.

HTML5 is however still not completed and even less certain browsers support it, so it will take years to see that dream come true, that’s why nowadays XHTML standard remains the most widespread and vivid of all, but is sentenced to death and its execution will be slow and agonizing… though HTML5 will include a version very similar to XHTML, XHTML5, for nostalgics with the old coding style.