I just did some interesting reading that made me rethink the purpose of the different versions of HTML.

One of the first things I did when I launched this site was work to convert it to valid XHTML 1.1. I was excited about the potential of HTML served as XML, and I saw the doctype of my site as a vote towards moving forward. The more sites that start serving XHTML, the faster browsers will support it, right?

Well that might be true, but the fact is, we're not there yet. As I've mentioned before, this is required for delivering XML applications, even XHTML. The problem is, Internet Explorer just doesn't support the application/xhtml+xml mime type.

Previously, I used a workaround to send XHTML 1.1 to browsers that could support it (ie. Firefox), and XHTML 1.0 to browsers that couldn't. This is what I've done for the past year.

Today, I read on the Mozilla website, in the Web Developer FAQ:

... if you are using the usual HTML features (no MathML) and are serving your content as text/html to other browsers, there is no need to serve application/xhtml+xml to Mozilla. In fact, doing so would deprive the Mozilla users of incremental display, because incremental loading of XML documents has not been implemented yet. Serving valid HTML 4.01 as text/html ensures the widest browser and search engine support.

Geez, I thought, what have I done? I tried to make things better for Firefox users, but really I just made things slower.

There are lots of benefits to serving HTML as XML. The thing is, the browsers do a better job just working with HTML at the moment, so if you don't require the benefits of XML, you're better off sticking with HTML.

I read another article, Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful. So let's get this straight: it's harmful to send XHTML as either text/html or application/xhtml+xml. Since these are our only two choices, this means it's harmful to use XHTML! Since the browsers don't properly support XHTML, there's no tangible benefit yet to using XHTML instead of just HTML 4.01 strict.

One day there will be a reason to move forward and start using XHTML in all its glory. Many of us have been trying to make this a reality as soon as possible. Okay, it's a nice idea to start using XHTML 1.0 so that the transition in the future will be as smooth as possible. But beyond that, beyond looking into the future, there's no sense in changing what we're doing today. If a version of Internet Explorer ever comes out (8? 9? 15?) that really supports XHTML, then things might change.

Anyway, long story short, this web site is now XHTML 1.0, and I'm considering just going back to HTML 4.01 strict.