Why HTML 4.0?

How HTML 4.0 makes life easier for authors and readers.

The pointsource web-site is written to conform to the strict-definition of HTML 4.0. This requires the mark-up (heading, paragraph, etc.) to be free from presentational information. In theory this means that almost any browser can read the code and render the content in a meaningful way, no matter how that content is accessed. I say in theory because browsers do not all behave as well as they should; by ignoring what they cannot understand.

Because HTML 4.0 compliant pages are free from presentational information they are normally very boring to read; they have no individuality or style. To add presentational information we can use what are called Cascading Style-Sheets (CSS). Style-sheets contain instructions for how to render the information in the HTML document. These instructions may, for instance, relate to the font and colours used in visual browsers, or the voice and inflection in speech browsers.

Using this combination of very strict HTML formatting and CSS has several advantages over the use of presentational information in the HTML code itself.

Changes in presentation can be made across a whole website, simply by changing one file; the style-sheet. As time goes by the capabilities of browsers, and of HTML itself, are bound to increase. If the HTML code of a web-page is written with only logical, non-presentational, information then the process of converting those pages to take advantage of new technology is greatly simplified. This saves a lot of time and reduces the likelihood of errors creeping in.

The size of HTML files is reduced to a certain degree because the presentation information does not have to be duplicated in each file.

The range of potential readers is greatly increased because style-sheets can be applied to an HTML document that is appropriate for the device reading it.