By Jennifer Kyrnin

One of the most common questions I get these days is how long do I think that HTML will be a viable language for the Web. They usually go something like this:

I've read that HTML is obsolete and I should be using some other language (like XML). Should I learn XML before I learn HTML if I want to develop Web pages?

The Short Answer
No, HTML is not obsolete or dead. Web pages are built every single day using HTML. Most companies with Web sites still use HTML for their Web sites. And even those companies that use XML, need to have HTML output so that Web browsers can view the pages.

If you want to develop your own pages, or want to get involved in contract Web development, HTML is still the first requirement. If you're going to put Web pages up you're going to use HTML to do it, not XML or some other language.

The Long Answer
HTML 4.0 is obsolete. In fact, the latest version of HTML is really XML, or XHTML. XHTML 1.0 is very similar to HTML 4.0, that is because it is really HTML rewritten to be compliant with XML rules.

If you aspire to be a professional Web developer, you should start by learning and writing XHTML. This means that you should close all your tags, including tags like <option>, <p>, and <li>. For singleton tags, include a trailing slash in the tag, e.g. <img src="" />. You should follow all the rules for writing good XML.

Once you're comfortable writing XHTML, you'll have the basis for learning other XML languages, such as WML, XSLT, CDF, and proprietary markup languages created and used by your company. These languages are all based on XML, and they are the direction the Internet is heading.

One thing many people don't understand is that XML is not a language in the same way that HTML is a language. XML is more like the rules that define how to write all different types of languages. It's similar to learning grammar when you were in grade school. The grammar isn't the language, it describes the language. And you can use grammar terms to describe many different languages. XML takes that a step further by allowing you to create all new languages rather than just describe existing languages.

So, while HTML may be officially "dead", it lives on on the Web as XHTML and Web browsers will continue to read it for a long time to come. Long live (X)HTML!

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