Thread: FAQ/HTML standard?
Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as FAQs? If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML 1.0 as the standard? Also, I notice non-breaking spaces inserted in apparently odd spots in FAQ_MINGW.html - is there a particular reason for that or is it the product of some authoring tool? (Maybe this should be directed to -docs - I'm never quite sure). cheers andrew
On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:10:19 -0400, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as > FAQs? > > If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML > 1.0 as the standard? I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful.
On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 12:59 -0500, Bruno Wolff III wrote: > On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:10:19 -0400, > Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > > > Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as > > FAQs? > > > > If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML > > 1.0 as the standard? > > I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't > all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful. > I don't really have a concern if the standard chosen is XHTML or not.. what I am concerned about is that all the pages *validate*. just my opinion of course :) regards, J
Bruno Wolff III wrote: >On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:10:19 -0400, > Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > >>Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as >>FAQs? >> >>If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML >>1.0 as the standard? >> >> > >I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't >all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful. > > > I ran a cross a man in the street the other day who told me just the opposite ;-) Seriously, if you to use an argument like this you need to cite the article, or at the very least summarise its arguments. XHTML is simply a minimal reformulation of HTML in XML, and even uses the HTML 4.01 definitions for its semantics. Given that, it's hard to see why it should be considered a bad thing. cheers andrew
Am Samstag, den 10.09.2005, 12:59 -0500 schrieb Bruno Wolff III: > On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:10:19 -0400, > Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > > > Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as > > FAQs? > > > > If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML > > 1.0 as the standard? > > I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't > all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful. Well, you find articles for or against everyting. What made you believe this one was a resonable one? ;) Regards Tino
Bruno Wolff III wrote: > I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't > all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful. Is there a reason why the FAQ can't be in DocBook, like the rest of the documentation? That would allow multiple output formats to be produced, and avoid the need to store multiple copies of the FAQ in CVS. -Neil
On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 14:31:06 -0400, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > > Bruno Wolff III wrote: > > >On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:10:19 -0400, > > Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > > > > >>Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as > >>FAQs? > >> > >>If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML > >>1.0 as the standard? > >> > >> > > > >I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't > >all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful. > > > > > > > > I ran a cross a man in the street the other day who told me just the > opposite ;-) > > Seriously, if you to use an argument like this you need to cite the > article, or at the very least summarise its arguments. You didn't exactly give a good reason to back up your suggestion of using xhtml. I just wanted to alert people that there are contrary opinions and that someone may want to think about this before using the latest fad. > XHTML is simply a minimal reformulation of HTML in XML, and even uses > the HTML 4.01 definitions for its semantics. Given that, it's hard to > see why it should be considered a bad thing. Here is the article: http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml > > cheers > > andrew
Bruno Wolff III wrote: > > XHTML is simply a minimal reformulation of HTML in XML, and even > > uses the HTML 4.01 definitions for its semantics. Given that, it's > > hard to see why it should be considered a bad thing. > > Here is the article: > http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml While I believe that the reasoning in the article is totally bogus, the article only talks about which MIME type should be used for XHTML, not about whether the format should be used. Note that if you support the conclusion of the article, you may find the entire PostgreSQL web site objectionable. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 17:12 -0400, Neil Conway wrote: > Bruno Wolff III wrote: > > I ran accross an article a few weeks ago that suggested that this wasn't > > all that great of an idea. Using HTML 4.01 should be just as useful. > > Is there a reason why the FAQ can't be in DocBook, like the rest of the > documentation? That would allow multiple output formats to be produced, > and avoid the need to store multiple copies of the FAQ in CVS. Additionally, I would be inclined to think that this would be a good idea considering that DocBook defines elements specifically for structuring FAQ material. See http://docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/qandaset.html -- Regards, James William Pye
Bruno Wolff III wrote: > > Here is the article: > http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml > XHTML 1.0 pages has no problems with displaying when sent as text/html and they are better served as text/html because stupid IE won't show it right when you set mime type to application/xhtml+xml. So if you consider this as problem then you have valid reason to not use XHTML otherwise there are no reasons to use HTML 4.01 instead XHTML. And that article basically says it's bad to use XHTML because when you write non valid XHTML it does not show right - it's like when you write bad C code and it does not compile and you blame C for it. Author is wrong in some of its claims but this ML is not about web standards so I won't elaborate it here. Note: I might sound bit harsh but thats just because web pages is what I am doing and that article is plain nonsense. Oh and btw postgresql.org uses XHTML 1.0 ... -- Regards Petr Jelinek (PJMODOS)
On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 00:56:11 +0200, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote: > Bruno Wolff III wrote: > > > XHTML is simply a minimal reformulation of HTML in XML, and even > > > uses the HTML 4.01 definitions for its semantics. Given that, it's > > > hard to see why it should be considered a bad thing. > > > > Here is the article: > > http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml > > While I believe that the reasoning in the article is totally bogus, the > article only talks about which MIME type should be used for XHTML, not > about whether the format should be used. Note that if you support the > conclusion of the article, you may find the entire PostgreSQL web site > objectionable. Then you have made an informed decision.
On 9/11/05, Bruno Wolff III wrote: > On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 14:31:06 -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote: >> >> XHTML is simply a minimal reformulation of HTML in XML, and even uses >> the HTML 4.01 definitions for its semantics. Given that, it's hard to >> see why it should be considered a bad thing. > > Here is the article: > http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml I prefer standards over opinions: <quote> 5.1. Internet Media Type XHTML Documents which follow the guidelines set forth in Appendix C, "HTML Compatibility Guidelines" may be labeled with the Internet Media Type "text/html" [RFC2854], as they are compatible with most HTML browsers. Those documents, and any other document conforming to this specification, may also be labeled with the Internet Media Type "application/xhtml+xml" as defined in [RFC3236]. (..) </quote> http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ So just follow the compatibility guidelines (we want people to be able to read the FAQ anyway) and use text/html. Jochem
On Saturday 10 September 2005 12:10, Andrew Dunstan wrote: > Is there an HTML standard that we try to follow in our HTML docs such as > FAQs? > > If there isn't an explicit standard, may I suggest that we adopt XHTML > 1.0 as the standard? > Really the FAQ files need to be able to validate when viewed through the postgresql website, where we use: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> I have corrected some markup in the past, but by no means would I say this has been done thoroughly wrt the FAQ's. FWIW I'm not against changing the source to docbook if someone wanted to be really ambitious and convert all of the FAQ's to such a scheme (including the text only ones) as long as we had a way to easily build them out of cvs and into the website. I imagine my other web cohorts would probably think similarly. -- Robert Treat Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL