Minh’s Notes: “XHTML as text/html”

Hixie has put together a document supporting his position that sending the text/html MIME type for XHTML files is wrong. He’s always maintained that the use of XHTML at this time has no real advantage, and that everyone’s just jumping on the bandwagon.

I started using XHTML because I wanted to get into the habit of using XHTML conventions, so that, when a future version of XHTML would come out, I would be ready to easily transition to the new version. I’m excited about XHTML 2.0, as it includes some very interesting changes.

I do include a meta-tag in my webpages that sends the application/xhtml+xml MIME type (which Hixie also thinks is bad), but Netfirms overrides just about every meta-tag in my webpages, seeing as I use its free hosting service. And there’s not a chance that my webpages will ever truly be valid markup, because of the banner ads that Netfirms plasters on my webpages.

MingerWeb does have a mirror site at Akshor that doesn’t have any ads plastered on. You see, Akshor is one of those very few services that don’t plaster a banner ad on free sites. (I don’t really know how they can manage.) But they also don’t allow forum scripts of any kind, including (probably) Movable Type, the software which this website uses for blogs and comments.

I’m okay with Netfirms’ banners on my site, but I would really hope that they would find the time to make their code valid, therefore making my site valid. I e-mailed them before, basically asking them if they could make their code valid, but they replied promptly, with an invitation to use their paid services. I kind of expected that.

So, you see, Hixie’s arguments, while valid and quite true, don’t necessarily reflect everyone’s circumstances. For me, it’s kind of like, I would if I could.

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