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The Need for XHTML

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Why should we use XHTML, when our HTML is displayed correctly in web browsers? The above question is a valid one. To understand the need for XHTML consider the following HTML code:

<html>
<head>
<title>This is DIRTY HTML</title>
<body>
<STRONG>DIRTY HTML
<h1>This is heading 1

Do you know that if not most, many of the HTML web pages on the internet contain "dirty" HTML, just like the above HTML code example.

You know from your HTML knowledge that the above HTML code is not correct, but it still works!, when viewed in a web browser, running on a PC. Try it now! The reason is that the web browsers have historically been such designed to handle such bad or dirty HTML code. The same is not true when we talk about the compact browsers running on mobile phones and different types of small devices, because the browsers running on these small gadgets do not have enough resources or powers to interpret a wrong HTML code. What is the solution?

The solution is XHTML, where strict rules of XHTML force us to write clean HTML! XHTML is a cleaner version of HTML.

Also, HTML is used on the WWW in combination with javascript, ajax, CSS and other technologies. Javascript is used on the client-side as a browser scripting language to add interactivity to our static HTML web pages. Javascript extensively manipulates HTML tags. Javascript feels happy to manipulate well-formed XHTML web pages. This is another reason behind the XHTML standard.

Next >>> Lesson No. 3: XHTML Tag Nesting Rule