Comments on: Seeking an Answer: Why can’t HTML alone do includes?

By: Joe Pea

Joe Pea — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 03:16:03 +0000

In reply to Ernest. This is a big point. This feature would be enabling. Lowering the barrier of entry into the web. That's a great goal.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:31:54 +0000

Nobody remembers the very old XHTML with SSI (Server side includes)? It should have become the standard!

By: Alsanan

Alsanan — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 17:06:22 +0000

It’s the main reason for me to consider html incomplete. It’s a basic piece to leverage html over js, and it’s more needed every day that js frameworks get bigger and jeopardizes the web standards they hate.

By: Chris Coyier

Chris Coyier — Sat, 17 May 2025 14:05:31 +0000

In reply to Vlad. I think this is it. I have some upcoming conversations though that should shed more light.

By: Vlad

Vlad — Sat, 17 May 2025 11:48:39 +0000

Because HTML was never built for logic-based content reuse, and implementing it would require solving deep problems in performance, security, complexity, and browser architecture—problems that are already better handled by existing tools like static site generators and frameworks.

By: sareiodata

sareiodata — Sun, 04 May 2025 17:03:22 +0000

In reply to nobody. :O Mind blown!

By: Chris Coyier

Chris Coyier — Sun, 04 May 2025 13:56:47 +0000

In reply to Martin. I'm not understanding. Are you saying that HTML supports includes and has since 1997? And if I read the spec I would know that?

By: nobody

nobody — Sun, 04 May 2025 13:19:17 +0000

can do this. html5 supports svg.

By: Eion

Eion — Sun, 04 May 2025 12:05:11 +0000

In reply to Luke Dary. I've done this for a project before. The xml doc was just xhtml of the content then xslt to client-side render the outside html tags and css and header and footer. Worked really well, just a pain in the butt making sure everything was valid strict xml with no wriggle room of the looser xhtml spec

By: Justin Cummings

Justin Cummings — Sun, 04 May 2025 11:18:08 +0000

In reply to Ahmad Alhashemi. I think this is also a factor. Time traveling back to HTML’s ancestor, Sgml, they had an elaborate system of doctype declarations that relied on several aspects to make native composition happen: dtd complexity and failure handling inconsistency between renderers look like they contributed most of the pain.