everything you never need to know about html 4.0
June 25, 1999.
By David Sims. (Link to original article.)
It's rare that a conference session that offers to teach you everything you'll never need to know, but Molly Holzschlag says there's plenty in the most current HTML spec that we should ignore if we're interested in making pages most users can see.
Dave Sims: What's the meaning behind the title, "Everything you never need to know about HTML 4.0."
Molly Holzschlag: What's really interesting about HTML 4.0 is that it is the most idealistic standard of the HTML language. It basically sets forth a premise that says in its most strict definition, "Here's a great way to design web sites that have function and style. The problem is that the web browsers that are being used by most people can't support that ideal. So web designers have to figure out, "Okay, what do I need to know and what can I put aside in order to create cross-browser/cross-platform design that really works."
Sims: So, your session content is basically, Never mind all the capabilities of HTML 4.0, here's how to create cross-platform compatibility and hit the widest audience?
Holzschlag: Well, yes, at its very end, but what I'm going to be doing in this session is first I'm going to say, "Here's what HTML 4.0 is," because I don't think a lot of people really understand that it has interpretations. It has its strict interpretation, it has its transitional interpretation, and what these things really mean. Of course people working in the industry every day at the core, do understand this, but I think in general, people interested in HTML design don't have that information. So that's what I'm going to start with, and I basically talk about what it is, then I talk about what you really need, and then I talk about what the future is, where things are going, how things are being re-adjusted. You know, things like XHTML, which are on the threshold of the future.
Sims: Can you tell us a little about XHTML?
Holzschlag: Well essentially what XHTML tries to do, it's now in its draft form and the W3C is discussing whether to bring it into a proposal format, and essentially what it does is reorganizes the current available languages under a new heading. And it basically says that HTML is now a part or subset of a broader spectrum of languages including things like SMIL, the language for multimedia and various other languages such as vector-based languages for vector graphic support in web browsers, and all these new cool things that are starting to happen language wise. So XHTML tries to organize this in a sensible way.
Sims: Is this another coding standard that people authoring web pages are going to have to learn?
Holzschlag: I think it's an expansion and a reorganization. It's sort of like when a company realizes that the infrastructure it has is no longer working as well as a different infrastructure could work, and they begin to reorganize by putting people in different offices and creating new titles of what a given person's role is. That's really what XHTML is, because in the last few years we've seen new languages come to light there has to be some way of organizing this in some sensible fashion. It's no longer the days of simple, basic, "Type in this code and this is what you see." Things have gotten much more complex than that, so there's got to be a re-organization in order to understand it and to make it make sense in people's minds.
Sims: Last question, can you give us one example of something in 4.0 that we don't need to know.
Holzschlag: That's a good question. It really depends on what you're trying to do with HTML. That really is the bottom line. It's what you're trying to do with the language that will determine what you do and what you don't need to know.
Sims: Well it seems like the W3C at least wants us to be doing whatever we're doing, with something else, namely style sheets or XML.
Holzschlag: Right, and it's not practical. I would say that style sheets would have to be the answer in most cases. For example, if you're creating a consumer web site for the general public, you can certainly use transitional HTML and put font tags and style sheets in there, but the reality is that far too many people are still cruising around the Web with 2.0 browsers! How on earth can we say, "Let's use the latest and greatest technologies," and expect to reach the kinds of people that we really need to reach. I would say know your audience first and foremost.
