Re: Another view (sorry) on XBL and behaviours

At 11:57 AM 1/6/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>
>> XBL files (as HTCs in IE) provide a layer of encapsulation that may be
>> useful to some programmers. However, they do not themselves provide any
>> real extra functionality; everything that can be done with them could be
>> done with a little extra inconvenience using plain [Java|J|ECMA]Script,
>> coupled with DOM Level 2 Events.
>
>This is not quite true.  One difference that Ian has pointed out, for example,
>is the ability for the user to override specific behaviors.  This ability is
>provided by the encapsulation of behaviors into an external resource (an XBL
>binding, eg) which is then somehow attached to an element.  This means that
>overriding the behavior merely involves severing that attachment.


Yeah like changing an XSLT transformation.

No XBL needed.  XSLT already a standard.


>Sure it does.  That's been the trend for what? 10 years now?  Witness most of
>the CSS selectors module.  All of that _could_ be done using the DOM and
inline
>style (eg treewalker).  Why is it not?  Convenience, imo ("separation of
>content and presentation does not cut it; it would have been easy to just
havea
>simple syntax for "presentational script inclusion" or something like that).


Let the world build these conveniences in a layer above the UA, which can
be shared, so that we remove the monopoly (and slowness) of same UA teams.

XSLT is a layer to do that.


>> But does that mean the W3C should call it a standard and ask other
>> implementors to support it?
>
>That depends on how much need there is of such a feature... the fact that IE
>and Mozilla have both felt they needed to implement something like it means
>there must be _some_ demand.  The question is, how much.


How much demand is there for Mozilla?

I agree demand for abstracting scripting, and we have standards for that
already, XEvents, XSLT, etc..

We do not need a proliferation of overly specialized standards controlled
by the "few".

-Shelby Moore

Received on Monday, 6 January 2003 12:04:40 UTC