- From: Erik Bruchez <ebruchez@orbeon.com>
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:30:37 -0800
- To: "Forms WG (new)" <public-forms@w3.org>
All, I was suggested that XPath 2.0 had to wait XForms 2.0, and that this means likely waiting a long time based on our track record. It was also suggested that we should maybe try to work on smaller specs in order to deliver value to implementors faster. I believe that XPath 2.0 would be a prime candidate for trying to go down that road instead. I also believe that, in its simplest incarnation, XPath 2.0 support is easy to introduce into XForms: * In a first phase, XPath 2.0 support can consist of basically dropping in an XPath 2.0 implementation into your XForms implementation. This is pretty much what we do in Orbeon Forms, and we have had great success with that. It certainly beats the hell out of just using XPath 1.0. * Likely, certain parts of the spec should be updated to specify what happens when XPath 2.0 is used, e.g. wrt types passed and returned from our functions. * Regarding how to specify whether to use XPath 1.0 or XPath 2.0, I suggest following what is being done in the XProc specification [1]. I believe that what applies to XProc also applies to XForms. In short, the the form author specifies which XPath version should be used, and depending on what the implementation actually supports, different behavior is chosen. An implementation is free to support 1.0, 2.0, or both. In short I don't think we need to wait years to provide implementors guidance about how to use XPath 2.0 in XForms, _if they wish to support it_. Then later, in a few years, XPath 2.0 can be made mandatory in XForms. -Erik [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xproc/#xpath-context -- Orbeon Forms - Web Forms for the Enterprise Done the Right Way http://www.orbeon.com/
Received on Friday, 14 December 2007 22:30:46 UTC