Re: New introduction to XForms 2.0

Hi guys,

I'd suggest rolling the "essential properties" into the benefits summary. 
They don't fully characterize XForms, and they read like the other 
benefits.

In particular, the second essential property could be softened and 
reworded. Copy pasting it says "The controls no longer explicitly say what 
they look like, but what they do." The reader who hasn't been doing XForms 
for a decade will say that most controls don't say what they look like, 
that's what CSS does.

So, these essential points are incomplete but also don't form a higher 
level "elevator pitch" for XForms, which should 
1) characterize it succinctly, 
2) have a highly resonant reason why the reader should care, and 
3) follow the rule of 3. 

Cheers,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
IBM Distinguished Engineer & IBM Master Inventor
@johnboyerphd | boyerj@ca.ibm.com




From:   Erik Bruchez <erik@bruchez.org>
To:     Steven Pemberton <Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl>, 
Cc:     "www-forms@w3.org" <www-forms@w3.org>, "public-xformsusers@w3.org" 
<public-xformsusers@w3.org>, Forms WG <public-forms@w3.org>
Date:   02/18/2014 04:50 PM
Subject:        Re: New introduction to XForms 2.0
Sent by:        ebruchez@gmail.com



Steven,

Sorry not to have done this sooner, but I have now reviewed the intro.
My comments/corrections below:

1. This might be personal, but I don't like much the use of "XForm" as
a countable thing, as in "an XForm", "some XForms". I would prefer
talking about a "form", and "some forms", as it is clear what we are
talking about here.

2. I am not sure that it helps to mention "Experience has shown […]
order of magnitude". I would rather leave this out (or that would call
for a "citation needed"), as whether true or not it does sound like a
marketing message.

3. Typo: "manipulted → "manipulated".

4. `<itemset nodeset="...">`: should now be `<itemset ref="...">`.

5. "As the name suggests": not sure how the name suggests "Web" forms?
To me it would suggest "XML" forms ;)

6. A big issue with XForms 1.1 and earlier is how you deal with
calculations on currency values, as there was no decimal type (answer:
they work on doubles and produce funny results at times). So in the
example that shows `calculate="../unitprice * ../howmany"`, there
should be a `bind` assigning a `decimal` type to `unitprice`. This is
now possible out of the box with the use or XPath 2 and type
annotations.

That's it for now!

-Erik

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Steven Pemberton
<Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl> wrote:
> Dear XForms users,
>
> I have rewritten the introduction to XForms for the XForms 2.0 spec and
> would appreciate any comments you might have.
>
> http://www.cwi.nl/~steven/forms/intro.html
>
> I have tried to simplify it. Are there any features that don't get 
mentioned
> that ought to be?
> Are there things mentioned that don't need to be?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> Steven Pemberton
>