html vs. htm

Pfffttt... you decide that HTML is technically correct so it is? Please...

 

Dang your arguing over nothing. I'd have to agree with Minstrel - their is no advantage. Ok, so you use htm.. it's shorter and would save a tincy bit of bandwidth BUT html came first.... ok you use it but it's longer. Whatever. Who cares. Neither is best, it's just not worth arguing over.

 

No, Tim Berners-Lee decided .html is technically correct. .htm came about simply because the 8.3 filename format forced the last letter to be cut off.

There was never a disagreement whether one has an advantage over the other.

 

This has to be the silliest argument I can remember in a long time.

They are both conventions. It has nothing to do with "technically correct or incorrect" - it is simply a matter of custom, common usage, convention.. and that makes both of them correct.

 

It has become a custom or convention because the three character restriction is long gone. But .htm was not created because anyone wanted it that way, or because it was better; it was something people simply had to deal with on those 8.3 systems.

I'm not saying one is actually better than the other, and I'm not saying that one is better supported than the other. Technically, or theoretically correct in this case is simply because of historical reasons.

True. I originally made a comment that I thought was simple and historically accurate. I certainly wasn't expecting any controversy over it.

 

Damn you nit pick everything don't you

 

I was trying to make sure the points being made are not being misunderstood.

You picked a side on a point where there was only one side. This made it seem like you had misunderstood what I was saying. Now, it is possible that this is not what you meant, but I have no way of knowing what you intended to say, only what you did say.

 

I heard .htm indexes quicker in Google...but that might just be a rumor?

 

I don't know of any references that say one way or the other, but I can't think of any reason why this would be true.

[EDIT]
Here is Google's guidelines for webmasters: http://www.google.com/webmasters/index.html. The theory that .htm extensions are indexed quicker is not supported by these guidelines. It doesn't disprove the theory either, but we can't expect Google to take the time to discuss every possible rumor.

 

People prefer the .html extension, well at least I do.

Dreamweaver tends to use the .htm extension when using templates, etc.

 

No. That's not true.

What people? Most people don't care one way or another. Search engines don't care one way or another. It really makes no difference to your visitors, human or bots, whether your pages have filenames ending in .html, .htm, .php, .asp, .cfs, or anything else. It makes no difference whatsoever. What makes a difference is what the page contains and how well you optimize it for search engines so that other people can find it.

 

If you're counting pennies then there is one advantage of using HTM over HTML. HTM is shorter to write out and thus will make pages with lots of links just a little bit lighter.

 

Dear AMisticWeb:

You're using mothership Microsoft's FrontPage for a WYSISWG editor? NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! It makes noncompliant pages and its support for CSS, javascript, and W3C is shaky at best. You are far better off using Notepad than that. Okay so I am exagerrating but there are numerous freeware and premium WSIWYG editors on the web. Try looking for them at download.com. Using Frontpage over Dreamweaver (for example) is aiken to bowing down to our Microsoft master and browsing the web with Internet Explorer when one already has Firefox or Opera installed. It also makes a visual mess out of one's code. Allow me to recommend something far better. It is not WYSIWYG but it is freeware and it forces one to learn code all the while providing syntax coloring, it works with an array of programming languages including of course javascript, CSS, and HTML, it gives one full precision control over their design, and it has many features which time does not permit me to list here. Get Crimson Editor at crimsoneditor.com.

Real men (and women) use text editors!

 

bla bla bla bla M$ bla bla bla bla Micro$oft bla bla bla bla WYSIWYG sucks use text editors...

*yawn*

By the way, I do have Firefox and Opera installed and I do use IE as my preferred and default browser because I prefer it. That's not "bowing down to the Microsoft master". That's called personal preference and personal choice. I also use Crimson Editor as my preferred PHP editor. That doesn't mean the alternative choices are crap.

 

Use any browser and any extension....arrrrrr.....i mean any of HTM and HTML.

 

I thought you'd been here long enough to know that open source is personal choise and MS is the devil.

 

well said! that tired old debate needs to be dragged out to the back forty and put out of its misery. Use what you need to use to get the job done.

 

I prefer .html because it's what I always did and somehow reminds me of the early days on the internet when things were simple and spam was never heard of...

 

If you're keen on WYSIWYG editors that might explain why none of the links in your sig validate.

 

Oh, and on the topic of the thread, .htm and .html are not necessarily equal. It depends entirely on the setup of the server.