The Spec
The State of Things
- XHTML2 Discontinued: Official FAQ
- Bruce Lawson on the discontinuation and why it doesn't lose us anything
- Jeremy Keith clarifying the confusion around XHTML2.0's cancellation
- The unofficial Q & A
- http://www.zeldman.com/2009/07/02/xhtml-wtf/
- http://simonwillison.net/2009/Jul/4/xhtml/
HTML vs XHTML
- HTML 5 (
text/html) allows for XHTML-style syntax and HTML-style syntax. Use whatever you like. - XHTML 5 is an XHTML serialization of HTML 5 that is served as
pplication/xhtml+xml. It is strict about well-formedness as XML should be. - Zeldman re: the XHTML as text/html debacle
DOCTYPE
Here is the doctype for html 5:
<!DOCTYPE html>
XHTML doesn't need a doctype.
Defining semantics in HTML 5
- Extensibility not yet nailed down
- Microdata allows for groups of information
- ...should support a way for anyone to make up new elements!. A: no. Use classes or XML.
Microformats in HTML 5
The profile attribute seems to have been removed in the HTML 5 spec, meaning many Microformats can no longer reference their profiles. However, a proposal is in HTML 5 for a "profile" rel extension, to be used with the <link> tag.
Conformance
From the whatwg FAQ
Why does HTML5 legitimise tag soup?
It doesn't. Parsers are required to be lenient. Authors are required to be strict. See Postel's law.