[development] Administration Survey: Theme improvements, theme help system, theme mailing list

[Tim Altman]

On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 02:02:04 +0100, Larry Garfield  
<larry at garfieldtech.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 01 December 2005 09:40 am, andre wrote:
>
>> On that note - it might be a good idea to include links to pages like:
>> http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml part of the best practices
>> documentation.
>
> I don't know why people insist on passing that page around, since it's
> spreading FUD.

It is informative and accurate, and quite useful when used in context: if  
developers are considering the use of Drupal with the  
application/xhtml+xml MIME type.  Most things can be considered FUD when  
used out of context.

> - The scenario right up at the top applies only to dumb developers,  
> because it
> does not include validation.  If you're not validating your code against  
> your
> specified doctype, then you're doing it wrong in the first place.

Validating your own code isn't the only issue:  
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/01/14/thought_experiment.   
Drupal.org doesn't validate, FWIW.

> - <script> and <style> with funky comments to hide from old browsers: I  
> don't
> recall the last time I saw someone actually use the comments, now that
> Netscape 3 is no longer used.

9 out of the top 10 sites on the Web[1] have comments at the beginning of  
SCRIPT tags.  There is a caveat about this point, too.

[...]

> So it's not XHTML that is considered harmful,

No, sending XHTML as text/html is.  What benefits does sending XHTML as  
text/html have over semantic HTML 4.01?

[...]

> Read: XHTML doesn't break browsers, web developers break bad browsers.  
> :-)

This sentence doesn't make sense.  Neither XHTML nor Web developers can  
break browsers unless they trigger a bug.  XHTML sent as  
application/xhtml+xml breaks the Web:  
http://annevankesteren.nl/2005/11/draconian.

What benefit is there to Drupal developers and implementors in using HTML  
4.01 vs. sending XHTML as text/html vs. sending XHTML as  
application/xhtml?  That's the kind of question the handbook should  
answer.  The suggested page provides such information.

[1] http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

-- 
Tim Altman