XHTML Brouhaha and a ? Question ?

[Christopher Lane]

About this comment:
| From: David Megginson <david at megginson.com>
  Subject: How do you determine success?

  Sorry to be harsh, but I almost never see the required HTML 4.0
DOCTYPE declaration at the top of Web pages |

Sorry, David, you haven't seen any of the documents that I've written
for my company's intranet, because I've used the required 4.0 DOCTYPE
declaration on all my documents for at least two years.  Before that I
used the 3.2 version.  I've also used the 'transitional' version because
we have so many people in the company who've never figured out how to
upgrade their browser from NS 2.0 or 3.0.

My company (IBM) is also very heavily involved in pushing XML into
reality, and since the advent of the XHTML 1.0 proposal, I've started
using that as my standard.  Hey, David, the web pages have always turned
out beautifully! For the same reason of backward compatibility, I've
been using the 'transitional' statement in the DTD.  I never write any
document using frames but if I did, I suppose I might have to consult
the 'frameset,' and if I were actually implementing browser readable
XML, I would most certainly have to consult 'strict.'  I don't see any
great conflicts here.  Am I missing some key points?  From my position
on the ground, i.e., someone who uses a plain text editor every day to
write HTML documents for a corporate intranet, I mostly have to worry
about whether people's browsers can properly, or approximately,
represent my mind's-eye vision of what the document should look like
once it's ready to put in production.

OK, here's my question. In Saturday's newspaper (Seattle Times-Post
Intelligencer) I found an article on the front page of the business
section stating that the XML standard was "in trouble" and "will
certainly be delayed" because, and I'm quoting from memory here,
"European companies will never agree to the standard as written."  I
haven't seen any comment in this group about what may have caused such
an outburst in the press.  I wondered if anyone here had any insight
into what this latest imbroglio may be all about.

Thanks,
Christopher Lane
E-mail at home: zzyzlane at gte.net
E-mail at work: clane2 at us.ibm.com
page: http://home1.gte.net/zzyzlane/index.htm


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