Tags for this article: Can XML Replace HTML, html vs xml, xml w3c
Extensible mark up language or XML was not developed as a replacement for HTML. When the XML 1.0 was not developed as yet it was referred to as SGML for web. It is true that XML is very adaptable towards web but the number of XML based mark up languages cannot be rendered or it is not known that how to render all the documents. But this is just one side of the story as XML has already replacing HTML in certain terms. The World Wide Web Consortium or W3C is already very famous. It is actually responsible for HTML standards and currently version 4.01 is being used all over the world.
W3C is not planning to release no further enhancements after 4.01 HTML. On the other hand, it has actually approved some sought of recommendation of the version 1.0 or the dubbed extensible HTML or the XHTML. This shows that any future modification to the Web’s Lingua Franca will actually be done in the XHTML standard and not HTML. Hence XHTML is basically a XML form of HTML in which the start tags are actually balanced with the end tags. In the XHTML all the elements should always nest correctly within one another. In future there will be no overlapping which would reduce confusion and certain errors.
There are a number of other things as well such as the XHTML 1.0 comes with 3 different flavours. It is believed that XHTML is a good choice for current HTML documents as you can convert them easily into the XHTML format. The XML actually enforces some sought of a strict separation between the content and the structure. Furthermore, it also enforces the manner in which it is actually displayed. Some of the most important tags such as <body bgcolor=”#F0F0F0″> don’t have any place in a XML document. The truly XML based form of HTML would actually require some sought of presentation characteristics so that it can be represented in a style sheet. The style sheet is apart from the document itself.
The XHTML Transitional does actually relax the requirement which makes it even more likely that some legacy browsers that may or may not support style sheets can continue to work as it was expected. In XHTML all sorts of presentation related mar ups are banned it means that if you want some particular element to be displayed then you should actually then you must use a style sheet. Another very important thing is the XHTML frame set. In XHTML if you want to use any sought of frames in order to construct the web pages of your website then you can actually use the XHTML 1.0 version for a frameset itself.
The contents of individual frames will actually be marked up in one of the other two remaining flavours. It is not yet clear that it XML can replace HTML but one thing is for sure that the demand for XML is increasing day by day and who knows if someday HTML becomes history.