The Next War: XHTML 2.0 vs HTML 5

Just when we thought the end of the browser wars was in sight with IE 8 passing the ACID test; we’re probably going to end up in a different kind of browser war. It’s going to be worse than this browser war.

We’ve all been aware of the background behind the browser war. Browser vendors implemented proprietary elements, DOM and event handling models. Most frontend web developers despise Internet Explorer for its buggy handling of standard code. It requires us to go back and tweak our code to make it work in the Internet Explorer browser.

That was then this is now
Everyone knows about HTML 4.01 being the last of the HTML versions. It came in 3 different flavors: Strict, Loose, and Frameset. Commercialism blurred the original intent behind HTML which was just the content. Designers and commercial enterprises wanted to present their content in an eye appealing way. Because designers had changed the focus of its usage, experts designed XHTML 1.0 which is a complete rewrite of HTML using XML to define the element tags and attributes. It focused on separating content from presentation. It also has 3 different flavors Strict, Transitional and Frameset.

Just when we thought that HTML was dead it’s been resurrected. HTML 5 was accepted as a proposed standard last year by the World Wide Web Consortium. This is the prequel to becoming a recommended standard by the W3C. I know what you’re thinking because I thought the same thing. Why would anyone decide to resurrect the HTML markup language?

Well it all started…
In 2004, a little group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) decided to look at how web designers worked. With that information they got working on the specifications and redefinition of HTML to coincide with how web designers actually worked on the job. They are proposing a sequel to HTML V4 called HTML V5. The W3C has taken notice of their efforts by voting to adopt HTML V5 as a proposed standard last year. It hasn’t been accepted as an official recommendation but then neither has XHTML V2.

What’s The Difference?
The goal behind XHTML has always been the separation of content and presentation. XHTML v2 is also focused on the separation of concerns. Some of our biggest concerns are server interaction and programmability of on page elements. One of the current innovations within XHTML v2 is the XForms module which adds support for interactive logic, validation rules and computations without using Javascript. It also eliminates key-value pairings from the form input tags with a very rich XML structure. What that allows is subforms and repeating elements. It’s aimed at building elegant solutions that maximize accessibility.

HTML V5 is a completely different approach. The guys at WHATWG have documented the practical use of HTML. They are proposing features to make our jobs easier. WHATWG has been developing HTML elements with default behaviors that support interactive components like menus and toolbars as well as data grids.

So where do you stand?
The vendors have been consulted and actively participating in the HTML 5 proposal while XHTML 2 has been officially supported by the W3C since inception. It may be out of our hands as the browser vendors decide to implement one over the other. Read up on the resources I supplied below and sound off.

Web Out
Des

Resources
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/x-html5xhtml2.html?S_TACT=105AGX08&S_CMP=EDU HTML V5 and XHTML V2
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/16/1656245 Slashdot’s conversation on the topic
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/html5_xhtml2_and_the_future_of_the_web/ HTML5, XHTML2, and the Future of the Web
http://xhtml.com/en/future/x-html-5-versus-xhtml-2/ XHTML 5 Versus HTML 5
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/166 Tim Berners Lee on the new HTML Working Group for HTML 5