FAQ/HTML standard?

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

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&quot;&gt;
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