XHTML, RIP

Published on Jul 4, 2009 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under development, html (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.

Let’s end this week of morbid posts: The XHTML 2 Working Group is expected to stop their work end of 2009.

Today [July 2, 2009] the Director announces that when the XHTML 2 Working Group charter expires as scheduled at the end of 2009, the charter will not be renewed. By doing so, and by increasing resources in the HTML Working Group, W3C hopes to accelerate the progress of HTML 5 and clarify W3C’s position about the future of HTML.

Now while this post’s title exaggerates a little—you know me—, the W3C sends some interesting signals for XHTML:

• Thanks to the most popular browser with its market share exceeding 90% in some regions, XHTML 1.0/1.1 cannot be used at all. No change in sight.

• XHTML 2.0 is exciting from an “ideal markup language” point of view—and from that perspective, I had wished it to succeed—but that turned out not to be enough, and so it perishes.

• HTML 5, however, will feature an XHTML serialization.

The point is, the future of the Web is HTML 5, not XHTML. (And you can already use it.)

For XHTML, until user agents broadly support application/xhtml+xml and application/xml, even XHTML 5 will have a hard time. Authors will have to keep waiting to use any true features of XHTML, whether extensibility or (maybe then user-friendlier) error handling.

For non-DH6 commenters, meiert.com is my only project that uses “XHTML,” solely because of WordPress refactoring pain. That means that at least for the English part of this site, the cost of solution is still higher than the cost of problem.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)