Re: Decouple XBL2 From CSS

Hi Ian,

I'm getting deja vu here. I can't keep track of all the discussions
I'm in with you, in which you dismiss someone else's view as providing
'little or no benefit to the author', or assert that XML technologies
are unused on the web. Are you really serious when you say that XPath
is an untested technology? I had to look twice at the date...I'm sure
you must be having a little jest.

Anyway, the request for XPath selector support *is* actually being
made by authors and application builders, and I think it would be wise
to design XBL in such a way that the binding *selection* process is
distinct from what the bindings actually do. If an implementer chooses
to only support CSS selectors then that's fine, and doesn't bother me
at all.

One last thing; simply repeating endlessly that XPath selectors are
sub-optimal doesn't make it true. But I actually don't see it as
relevant to the discussion, one way or the other. It's up to
implementers--standards writers should provide the choice.

Regards,

Mark


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On 03/08/06, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 3 Aug 2006, Antoine Quint wrote:
> >
> > That's right. However, the selector is CSS3 Selectors only, if I follow
> > the reference in the current XBL2 draft. I think it would be great if
> > XPath selectors were also accepted for bindings, if only because XPath
> > is well understood by browsers out there today (well, at least WebKit,
> > Gecko-based browsers, Opera and Internet Explorer) and is a core XML
> > technology which XBL is poised to become too.
>
> Selectors are well understood by browsers, and are a core Web technology
> too... why would XPath be a better solution than Selectors here?
>
> The reason behind using Selectors is that that's what most authors use.
> Selectors is far more mature than XPath; why would a relatively untested
> technology like XPath be preferred over a well-known and widely used one
> like Selectors?
>
> (Using both isn't an option because it would require twice as much work
> for everyone involved with little or no practical benefit to authors.)

Received on Thursday, 3 August 2006 20:35:47 UTC