There are several different versions of HTML and XHTML that you can use to write Web pages. But does it really matter if you are using a specific one or not?
The first thing you need to decide is whether to use HTML or XHTML and then from there, you can choose a version of each to write. And if you understand the differences you'll make an informed decision.



There is also a xhtml 1.1 version, which is even more strict than 1.0. Version 2.0 is still in draft and also not backwards compatible, which is a hughe downside…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML