Simon Willison’s Weblog

Hixie replies

13th June 2002

Hixie has replied to my previous post (and provided my first ever link in the process).

The message may not be diluted... I simply think it is very bad form for a group that is claiming to champion the standards to be making any mistakes at all on their site.

I can’t disagree there (and I hope they correct some of the problems with the site). As for the content-type header issue, Hixie’s stance is that using XHTML at this time is inappropriate due to a lack of proper browser support. He’s probably right on that as well, but that leaves us with the question “When CAN we start using XHTML?”. The browser upgrade cycle for an average net user is horrific, hence the continuing relevance of the five year old Netscape 4. It could be another five years before browsers that support XHTML properly are dominant enough for it to be worth while.

If by serving content with a text/html header I can create pages in future-proof, easily parsable XHTML and have them accessible to virtually every browser ever release, XHTML it shall be. Then when browser support catches up I’ll be ready, and so will my websites.