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I am really new to this so please forgive the basicness of my question...

I want to learn to design websites and I have a program which I am planning to learn (Dreamweaver CS5) using tutorials from Lynda.com. However on the tutorial it says you should have a good grasp of HTML and CSS before starting Dreamweaver.

I looked at the Lynda.com video for HTML but it is all focused on XHTML. http://www.lynda.com/tutorial/47603

Now I am a bit confused. I heard a new standard was coming in (HTML5). If I learn XHTML - does that mean that I will then have to go back at a later date and learn HTML4 so that I can then catch up and learn HTML5 or will I be able to use my XHTML knowledge and add the future HTML5 code to it?

For example there is a Lynda video on HTML5 but the author says you need a knowledge of html before you can watch it.

Do you think the Lynda.com video on XHTML/HTML is a good place to start or do I need to get a book on HTML4 instead?

If you were starting out now would you learn HTML4 or XHTML?

Thanks

kickingPair
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XHTML, absolutely.

Last recommended HTML version was 4.x, and it's from 90s era.

Learn XHTML as much as possible, and try to use strict versions.

Matías Fidemraizer
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  • Perhaps you should read this article about XHTML. http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200501/the_perils_of_using_xhtml_properly/ – orlp Jan 17 '11 at 10:20
  • @nightcracker 2005... we're 6 years ahead. I mean, I don't agree with this article and XHTML has helped a lot in creating multiplatform, multibrowser web solutions and HTML 4.x was "do it right, but it's up to you" and this is from the times of BOM (Browser Object Model). Now we're in the standards era (DOM). – Matías Fidemraizer Jan 17 '11 at 10:28
  • I see that here there're Xhtml haters, but this isn't a reason for voting down my answer. You can argue that you like more Html4, but the benefit of a common standard like XHTML which has helped a lot of developer lifes for a long time is undoubtable. – Matías Fidemraizer Jan 17 '11 at 10:42
  • @Matias Fidemraizer: If you can name one direct benefit of XHTML over HTML, I'll take away my downvote. – sevenseacat Jan 17 '11 at 11:04
  • Right. Xhtml has one main benefit: one way of doing things. That's browsers can support more features because they don't need to handle free-style markup coding. Another one is XHTML is XML, meaning ANY XML parser, reader and writer can work with XHTML. What's the benefit of that? Any server technology can manipulate XML DOM, then XHTML. Another one: since XHtML is XML, you can leverage XSL/XSLT to transform XHTML into any XML-based or others formats, improving portability between different systems (operating systems, hardware and/or browsers). – Matías Fidemraizer Jan 17 '11 at 11:10
  • And... which part of that can you not do with valid HTML? – sevenseacat Jan 17 '11 at 11:12
  • HTML4 isn't a well-formed XML, then you can't parse as XML, and in the end, you can't take advantage of such W3C standards. – Matías Fidemraizer Jan 17 '11 at 11:19
  • Only thing missing is an XML declaration. – sevenseacat Jan 17 '11 at 11:22
  • Well, Karpie, I see you're not reasonable and you vote down people because opinions and you're not based in any strong knowledge :) – Matías Fidemraizer Jan 17 '11 at 11:39
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I agree with @Matías, if only because of it's strictness which will likely result in cleaner code in the long run. That said, porting from one html version to another shouldn't be too difficult regardless of which one you choose.

Hawxby
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I find that when programming the use of XHTML is nice because it allows me to catch errors in my markup at compile time instead of some obscure bug showing itself way later when I modify a page.

The whole lack of XHTML 1.1 support in IE has been a pain, but there are work arounds such as XSL transformations and the such. IE9 has finally added support.

Once (X)HTML5 support becomes strong in the major browsers I intend on using XHTML5 in any web projects I do for work. Supporting legacy IE versions will still be a pain, but it will be manageable.

Rodney Beede
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I would learn HTML4.01, but only because I detest XHTML.

It doesn't matter that much, making the port from (X)HTML x.xx to (X)HTML y.yy is not that hard. You'll have a few pitfalls, but that's all.

On the other hand, HTML5 is quite different and you can start learning it already. It's already happening.

Whatever you learn, make sure you learn the Strict version.

orlp
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Check this out for future proofing: http://blog.twostepmedia.co.uk/css3-still-novelty-or-usable-in-everyday-web-development/

To the O/P, learn the basics of HTML4 and then get straight onto HTML5, you'll be way ahead of the pack and your websites WILL stand out :)

benhowdle89
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I would personally work on learning HTML5. By the time you get proficient at it to be good enough to professionally code websites, most of the major browser vendors will have adopted it as the standard.

Remember, web technology moves fast! What's hot today will be obsolete tomorrow, and what's in beta now will be hot tomorrow.

I found this http://headjs.com, a modernizer, here on Stack Overflow, which is used to future-proof web applications. This makes learning and using HTML5 markup a possibility today, so that as browser vendors update their applications, they'll slide right into the HTML5 functionality.

Make CSS apply only for Opera 11?

Community
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jamesmortensen
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For a brief summary:

  • HTML 4.01 is the current standard of markup languages for the internet.

  • XHTML 1.0 was forked off from HTML 4.01. It introduced greater strictness in validation, more XML-like syntax (eg. <br /> instead of <br>) and XML namespaces for things like MathML (for embedding mathematical equations in pages.... very infrequently used). In theory XHTML allowed people to define their own tags.... but in practice this never happened. In actuality, the only real different it has from HTML 4.01 are the self-closing tags, a different doctype (the header at the top of HTML documents), and a few attributes on the <html> tag.

  • XHTML 1.1 was a natural progression from XHTML 1.0. It introduced even greater strictness, and enforced things like mime-types for served documents. However, because it declared it was XML instead of HTML, and had to be served to the browser as XML (which Internet Explorer to this day does not support), it never took off.

  • XHTML 2.0 was a draft recommendation that got scrapped along the way. No-one subsequently uses it.

  • HTML 5 is the next evolution from HTML 4.01. It adds a lot of new tags, new functionality such as local storage (meaning more web-app type applications are possible), and some other goodies. It comes in two flavours - HTML 5, which uses HTML-style syntax, and XHTML 5, which uses XHTML syntax with self-closing tags (and is not to be confused with XHTML 2, which is dead remember.) It is 'the next big thing' in web markup languages, but is still in draft stage. Some browsers are introducing support for new HTML 5 tags, but legacy browsers have no support.

HTML 5 cannot be safely used in current sites, due to the draft nature of the specification. Some sites are doing so, but those sites can possibly get the whole nature of the language yanked out from under their feet.

HTML 5 is not expected to be a formal recommendation until 2022.

In summary: The current language of the web is HTML 4.01. HTML 5 expands on that greatly, but is not ready for everyday use. And the differences between HTML 4.01 and any flavour of XML, are minimal at best.

sevenseacat
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XHTML's main benefit, as Matias said, is it's XML compatibility, and also the other way round; I regularly use an XSLT to transform an XML document into XHTML. Although XSLT can output HTML, it's HTML that's compliant with XML anyway.

Strictly speaking, there's no reason you can't write HTML5 that's totally XML compliant; for that reason alone, I'd say go with HTML5, and by writing it so that it IS XML compliant, you also get all the benefits of XHTML.

Flynn1179
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