Real World XML

Differences Between XHTML and HTML

As you know, XML is more particular about many aspects of writing documents than HTML is. For example, you need to place all attribute values in quotation marks in XML, although HTML documents can use unquoted values because HTML browsers will accept that. One of the problems the W3C is trying to solve with XHTML, in fact, is the thicket of nonstandard HTML that's out there on the Web, mostly because browsers support it. Some observers estimate that half of the code in browsers is there to handle nonstandard use of HTML, and that discourages any but the largest companies from creating HTML browsers. XHTML is supposed to be different: If a document isn't in perfect XHTML, the browser is supposed to quit loading ...