Using XHTML in coding web pages may as well be one of the fastest growing trends in the web today. In almost every website, mostly personal, that are being published each day, we usually see the words "Valid XHTML" proudly plastered somewhere in their footers or sidebars meaning they have taken their time to conform to the W3C's (World Wide Web Consortium) coding standards.
But is coding in XHTML really important?
At this day and age, almost all kinds and forms of information can be easily accessed through the various tools and devices available in the market. Today, web sites are not only accessible through our desktop computer and laptop's web browsers but can also be viewed in our PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) and mobile phone, and with this, XHTML conformity plays a vital role.
Using HTML as your source code means more complexity and codes within the site so you can achieve the look that you're going after. More frills equal more codes and images embedded within the page, more codes and images means a "heavier" web page making it quite impossible for the handheld devices to accommodate the page due to the limited capacity of its memory. XHTML, on the other hand, allows a site to divide its content from its appearance, through the use of CSS, that makes it aesthetically pleasing but still light enough so that it requires minimum amount of memory for it to be processed.
Valid XHTML = Browser Comaptible?
One of the most common reasons why people use valid XHTML for their websites is because they believe that by using XHTML, their site would render the same way in each and every browser. While it is the main purpose and intent of producing a valid document, it is still impossible since browsers do not interpret valid documents the same way. It means however that you have a valid document and that your coding is semantically correct.
