XHTML is an evolution of HTML that complies with XML syntax rules, making it stricter and cleaner than HTML. It delivers web content to browsers while CSS provides visual design and XML provides data. To learn XHTML, first learn HTML and then apply XHTML rules like properly nesting tags, closing all tags, using lowercase tags and attribute quotes, and including mandatory header elements. Web development typically involves editing HTML locally, saving and refreshing in a browser, then uploading finished work to a staging or production server.