RE: Is or isn't scripting needed, was RE: XForms vs. Web Forms

Question (from someone obviously not as technical than either of these
fine people in their area of expertise):

Anne, you say that in "native implementations" that WF2 is no more
useful than Xforms unless you have a plug-in.  Ok, I can accept a need
for a plug-in, but exactly what the plug-in does and how it does it
becomes much more interesting at this point.  Is there a plug-in for use
with IE of WF2?  If I had a plug in, would I have to use any script to
reform data when sending to the server?.....

Ok, as I was writing this, John replied with the answers to the above
questions.  Basically, either technology currently requires a plug-in or
script, take your pick.  The advantage of Xforms remains clear in my
mind.  If I'm using XML, use Xforms. WF2 has been said to be a "bridge"
between current HTML Forms and Xforms to help the HTML programmer
transition. I agree with this assessment, but realize that any "bridge"
will be discarded once the revolutionary technology is properly
understood and implemented.  For me, it doesn't take a leap of faith to
realize that if I start with XML, I should continue in XML and end with
XML, not transition from XML (or XHTML) to HTML/JavaScript and then
transition again back to XML.  This gums up the works as any competent
computer programmer will tell you.  Things get lost in translation, and
a pure medium is always better.  


Thank you,

Christopher M Goodrich A+
Corporate Computing Help Desk
Sandia National Laboratories
Science Applications International Corporation
cmgoodr@sandia.gov
(505) 284-4797 

-----Original Message-----
From: Anne van Kesteren [mailto:fora@annevankesteren.nl] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:41 AM
To: John Boyer
Cc: Goodrich, Christopher Michael; www-forms@w3.org
Subject: Re: Is or isn't scripting needed, was RE: XForms vs. Web Forms

John Boyer wrote:
> This is curious to me. If not with a pile of javascript, then can you 
> explain how else the new attributes and their values will be given 
> meaning other than by a browser upgrade?

I thought we were comparing "native implementations". If you want to
implement WF2 in a curernt browser, then yes, you need scripting. 
However, you could create a plugin as well, as is done for XForms.


> Without scripting, isn't it the case that the WHAT-WG is no more 
> compatible with IE and other existing browsers than XForms?

Not really. Where IE would download a page using XForms embedded in 
XHTML it would show a page using WF2 in HTML. Also, the form can still 
be submitted, but client-side validation is lost.


> With scripting, isn't it true that existing browsers can be used for
> the WHAT-WG proposal?  But isn't it also true that with scripting the
> existing browsers can be used to support XForms?

The first is true. The second is false. IE doesn't support the 
'application/xhtml+xml' namespace, for example.


-- 
  Anne van Kesteren
  <http://annevankesteren.nl/>

Received on Wednesday, 16 March 2005 19:10:30 UTC