RE: XMLHttpRequest Comments from W3C Forms WG

If XHR is wholly dependent on HTML5 then it should either be moved into the HTML5 recommendation-track document, or renamed "XHR for HTML5."   Ian has made a point that modularizing HTML5 itself is a large task; it's not clear that the same applies to this XHR document, at least to the same degree of work required.  I don't see what harm comes from waiting to advance this XHR document until the necessary work has been done.

Leigh.

-----Original Message-----
From: Henri Sivonen [mailto:hsivonen@iki.fi] 
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 12:12 AM
To: Klotz, Leigh
Cc: Anne van Kesteren; WebApps WG; Forms WG
Subject: Re: XMLHttpRequest Comments from W3C Forms WG

On Dec 16, 2009, at 21:47, Klotz, Leigh wrote:

> I'd like to suggest that the main issue is dependency of the XHR document on concepts where "HTML5 is the only specification that defines several core concepts of the Web platform architecture, such as event loops, event handler attributes,  Etc".

A user agent that doesn't implement the core concepts isn't much use for browsing the Web. Since the point of the XHR spec is getting interop among Web browsers, it isn't a good allocation of resources to make XHR not depend on things that a user agent that is suitable for browsing the Web needs to support anyway.

XHR interop doesn't matter much if XHR is transplanted into an environment where the other pieces fail to be interoperable with Web browsing software. That is, in such a case, it isn't much use if XHR itself works like XHR in browsers--the system as a whole still doesn't interoperate with Web browsers.

--
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Thursday, 17 December 2009 17:13:46 UTC