Building a community, was Re: A rose by any other name...

Hi Mark,

Actually, I quite agree with you here.  We spend all our time developing 
new technical output for XForms, and not enough time as a group developing 
content and promoting our work. 

We need to figure out how to change that.  Seems worth some talk time at 
the FtF.  We're a working group, but it seems that some of the work in 
bulding a healthy standard is non-technical.

Regarding planetXForms, I do wonder whether you've seen the update from my 
blog, posted last night.  Actually, there seem to be about half a dozen 
entries there.  The reason I ask is that you mentioned low turn out, and 
granted I'd like to see more blogging too, but I'm noticing that my feed 
reader is not reporting any changes even though the website is updating. 
I'll confess that my current feed reader in Notes 8 is getting confused by 
Dublin Core formatted dates and times, so the W3C feeds are causing it 
problems.  It would be nice to know if the update problem for planet 
XForms is on my feed reader, but since you mentioned the issue I wonder if 
maybe this time it isn't?

Please let me know.

Thanks,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Technical Staff Member
Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
Blog RSS feed: 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw





"Mark Birbeck" <mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com> 
Sent by: mark.birbeck@x-port.net
01/25/2008 10:30 AM

To
John Boyer/CanWest/IBM@IBMCA
cc
"Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer" <sebastian@dreamlab.net>, "new Forms WG" 
<public-forms@w3.org>, "Charles F Wiecha" <wiecha@us.ibm.com>
Subject
Re: A rose by any other name...






Hi John,

But the point about something like Ajax, is that it named something that 
already had momentum. I think you'll agree that no-one was sitting round 
thinking, 'how can we make the use of JavaScript in browsers more 
popular...we really need a catchy name'. :)

So by all means come up with an Intel-inside name for the next version or 
versions of XForms. But aren't we putting the cart before the horse a 
little, to be worrying about this now?

If I was to worry about anything, I'd say, how come the level of blogging 
about XForms is so low? I set up planetXForms the other week, to help 
people find stuff on XForms, and once you have all of the historical 
stuff, there is very little activity there. I can say for certain that 
there are at least three people in our group who don't have a blog at the 
moment, but if they had one I'd read it avidly. :)

And what about screenshots and videos? Why don't implementers take some 
time to put some screenshots into the Flickr XForms group, or videos into 
the YouTube group, and tag them with XForms so that they pop up on 
planetXForms. These will clarify what XForms is all about far more than 
choosing a clever name.

And presentations. I'm guilty here, too, since I have lots of 
presentations that I've done on XForms over the years that I haven't yet 
linked to (they are public in our SVN repository, as it happens), but 
surely other people have slides, too? Let's see them.

So if I was to worry about anything, it wouldn't be the name, it would be 
that no-one else except us is going to create a community around XForms, 
so we need to get on with it.

And sure, if you want to add something to the XForms name to make things 
clearer, go ahead...but I have to confess I can't get too excited about 
it. :)

Regards,

Mark

On 25/01/2008, John Boyer <boyerj@ca.ibm.com> wrote:

Hi Sebastian (and Kenneth and others), 

This sounds interesting because it preserves the "XForms inside" and the 
market awareness we have managed to raise, yet allows us to project 
broader applicability. 

Combining with a twist on a suggestion from Rafael, maybe something like 

XForms 1.1: Rich XML Applications, or perhaps Dynamic XML Applications 

This leads to RXML applications developers (or DXML).   

Not sure if that has enough coolness factor, but gut feel is that it 
piques the interest more than "backplane", which is a good technical name 
but seems to rate about the same as "form" on the good name scale. 

<tongue-in-cheek>Maybe we should name it after some kind of delightful 
beverage</tongue-in-cheek> 

Well, maybe only half a tongue because this is essentially Joern's point 
with codenames like Longhorn and Tiger or even, frankly, AJAX.  Being an 
AJAX programmer sounds heroic; it's downside is that it needs a hero to 
keep it together.  We could use a good dose of Greek mythology.  Achilles? 
Unbeatable... except for that heel.  Phoenix? Powerful rising raptor 
image, but comes out of a crash and burn scenario.  Drats.  Walden.  Hmm. 
Calm and idyllic, yet somewhat connected to civil disobedience.  Maybe a 
bit Cambridge though.  A precious stone name?  The red one is already 
taken, the name of the green one has too many syllables and the associated 
city is just too far from Kansas (and hence New Jersey).  Sapphire?   Got 
the right number of syllables, looks blue, seems pure.  Could work.  Other 
ideas? 

Our claim to fame seems to be that, years before there was a formal Web 
2.0, we've essentially been working on the generalization of the Web 2.0 
application model.  People are loving Web 2.0 because it provides specific 
business functions like blogs and wikis that allow people to collaborate 
on content without needing a pile of Java programmers kicking around.  The 
declarative and data-focused aspects of XForms allow us to let the people 
build up collaboration functions without needing a pile of Java programmer 
in the middle.   

How do we capture this in a name?  I agree with Mark (and Shakespeare) 
that a rose is still a rose no matter what you call it, but Shakespeare 
was talking about a rose in the hand, whereas we need something that helps 
people find the XForms rose in the first place.  This is hard given the 
usual standards precedent for dull technical names. We need something with 
flair.  And as Mark Twaine once said, the difference between the right 
word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning 
and the lightning bug. 

Gee, this seems like the most fun we've had since the announcement by 
Yahoo! 
  
Cheers, 
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Technical Staff Member
Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
Blog RSS feed: 
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw





Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer <sebastian@dreamlab.net> 
01/25/2008 03:30 AM 


To
Mark Birbeck <mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com> 
cc
Charles F Wiecha <wiecha@us.ibm.com>, John Boyer/CanWest/IBM@IBMCA, new 
Forms WG <public-forms@w3.org>, public-forms-request@w3.org 
Subject
Re: A rose by any other name...








Maybe my previous was too long and unclear, I proposed
an additional (sub)name for the next version number:

"XForms 1.1: XYZ"

Keep XForms - add something to it thats a bit broader.

Names do matter, after all.

- Sebastian

Mark Birbeck schrieb:
> Hello all,
> 
> With respect to everyone on this, the 'naming' discussion always seems
> to come up in a context where people wish some 'x' was more
> successful, and assume that it will be if they change the name.
> 
> Yet some of the most well known items have names that by this logic
> should simply not work; renting a DVD? Downloaded some MP3s? Does your
> computer have a 486? (Ok, that one is dated...but non-technical people
> really used to talk about having a 486.) And don't even think about
> phones; you've surely heard people talking about getting a 6500 or a
> 5610.
> 
> So let's not kid ourselves that the name really means anything. (Which
> is how I've always interpreted Shakespeare's point about roses -- that
> what we call something is irrelevant, it's its nature that matters.)
> 
> But perhaps the biggest argument against a name change is the legacy
> one. Over the last few years we've built up tutorials, samples, blog
> posts, implementations, tools, and so on, based on the name 'XForms'.
> And we all know that recently Yahoo! announced that XForms was the
> inspiration for the latest release of its mobile platform.
> 
> So, just as interest is growing, do we now want to change the name?
> 
> There are lots of things that need to be done to speed up adoption,
> but I think the name  of the technology is the least of our problems.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark
> 
> On 25/01/2008, Charles F Wiecha <wiecha@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>> Well...this broader vision for XForms is certainly why I joined the WG, 
and
>> have been interested in the "Backplane" ideas for some time.  Indeed 
the
>> phrase Backplane is intended to imply the broader applicability of
>> "components" such as submission, data model, validation, MVC binding 
and
>> events to broader web applications -- in a variety of host languages 
and
>> platforms just as XForms applies to those cases as well.
>>
>> In my own work, apart from the WG, I've often been asked why I keep so
>> focused on "forms" when the web is so much broader.  I spend a lot of
>> effort explaining how the above ideas have incubated in forms but are 
in
>> fact part of the deeper web stack.  I'm getting pretty tired of this 
and
>> frankly it's starting to be a handicap so I'd welcome some help in a 
name
>> change here :}
>>
>> Thanks, Charlie
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>          A rose by any other name...
>>
>>
>>          John Boyer
>>                    to:
>>                      Forms WG (new)
>> 01/24/08 07:36 PM
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>          Sent by:
>>                public-forms-request@w3.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> In some ways it's too bad that the need for dynamic, interactive XML
>> applications arose first in the web forms space.
>>
>> One reason is that we called it XForms, and it has always been a 
challenge
>> to get people excited about forms.  They have too many pre-conceived
>> notions about the uses and limitations of forms technology based on 
their
>> prior experiences with older technologies for delivering forms. Whether
>> purely instantiated with paper, or whether it's a print and fill or 
even a
>> fill and print system, or an old html form, the dynamism of what we do
>> today seems to me qualitatively different than what is done with those
>> other technologies.
>>
>> It's a little like comparing a bicycle and a car on the basis that both
>> involve the use of wheels to get you from point A to point B.  Bit of a
>> stretch, don't you think?
>>
>> Similarly, calling our dynamic interactive XML applications "XForms"
>> because forms collect data is also a bit of a stretch.  The word "form"
>> just doesn't evoke the full measure of business process enablement of 
which
>> so-called "XForms" are capable.  Whether you ascribe to the more 
ephemeral
>> view in which an XForm serves as the intelligent front-end face of the
>> business process, or whether you subscribe to the philosophy of the
>> intelligent document as the fundamental unit of information interchange 
in
>> a business process, the simple fact remains that calling our 
information
>> processing assets "forms" is about as informative as trying to sell
>> "plants" when you mean to sell roses.  The rose does smell just as 
sweet no
>> matter what you call it, but if you call it a plant, you won't attract 
as
>> many customers.
>>
>> So, isn't it time for the name XForms (plant) to be changed to 
something
>> more reflective of what XForms is (a rose)?
>>
>> John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
>> Senior Technical Staff Member
>> Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
>> Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
>> Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
>> IBM Victoria Software Lab
>> E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com
>>
>> Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
>> Blog RSS feed:
>> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 





-- 
  Mark Birbeck, formsPlayer

  mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com | +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
  http://www.formsPlayer.com | http://internet-apps.blogspot.com

  standards. innovation.