title: how to know which <!DOCTYPE> type to use
body: <p>i've searched and could not find any good explanation on here and on the internet many people outline what document types there are but don't explain how to determine which one would work best for your code....</p>
  
  <p>so my question is how do i know which type of document type to declare in my webpage.....i know the difference between XHTML and HTML, i'm not asking that, i'm asking what type of document type such as:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>OR</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>an explanation or links would help.....i appreciate it!</p>