RE: Decision Point on XForms 1.2

All,
 
we also support the idea of a reduced scope for 1.2.
 
On the other hand, I remember an interesting discussion last December about
extensibility of Xforms around Xpath functions and actions. Reviewing the
list of future features I could only detect this issue for custom functions,
leaving actions outside. I think it would be nice to consider the whole
issue of extensibility for Xforms 2.0.
 
Regards,
 
Rafael


  _____  

De: public-forms-request@w3.org [mailto:public-forms-request@w3.org] En
nombre de John Boyer
Enviado el: jueves, 14 de febrero de 2008 20:26
Para: Forms WG (new)
Asunto: Decision Point on XForms 1.2
Importancia: Alta



Further to our telecon discussion about how to decide what's in or out of
XForms 1.2, there is a decision to be made here. 

Right now, I think XForms 1.2 is too big compared to what was really
mandated by our charter.  This is one reason I put all remaining "possible
1.2 or high 2.0 features" into 2.0.  But it doesn't seem like that goes far
enough.  I have a proposal below to cut scope for 1.2, but first let's
review what's currently listed. 

The features currently listed for 1.2 in the wiki 

1) ease-of-authoring patterns that are consistent with the expectations set
forth in our charter.  As a side note, we have *lots* of other ease of
authoring ideas, some are listed in 2.0 (like) AVTs and some have crept up
into 1.2 (like the repeat pattern).   But none of these go into the bucket
we are calling "ease of authoring" patterns because this bucket is targeted
at the "transitional" XForms on-ramp concept in our charter for 1.2.  We
need a better name than the one we have, but I think it will be used to
describe the overall release if the proposal below is acceptable. 

2) User interface patterns.  A number of these seek to to capture what
people are doing with sets of our form controls that interact together
toward a common purpose. But some (like the wizard pattern), I think we do
not know well enough to codify something useful, and it will take too long
for 1.2 to figure it out. 

3) Composition patterns.  This has exciting stuff like nested models and
external models.  It also has stuff which could be looked at as being other
than composition, like the function definitions. 

4) Modularization. This work seems inevitable in order to do the
"simplification"/"transitional"/"on-ramp" work. 

PROPOSAL: I propose that we drop the 'patterns' theme for XForms 1.2 and
instead focus on the core charter mandate.  I don't have a great name for it
yet, and I could use some help in this area.  But it's something more like
"XForms 1.2: Streamlined for Web Application Authors" . 

Details: 

i) I don't think we need three subthemes. 

ii) I think everything in our current "ease-of-authoring" bucket fits into
this new theme. 

iii) I think we have to do the switch/using construct because it is a bug
fix to the language, and we still need to do some of those.  But the other
"UI patterns" should be pushed off to 2.0 or later. 

iv) I think that the "custom XPath functions" fits this theme, in part
because the XPath function implementations could be provided by Javascript.
But otherwise, the composition patterns really need to be deferred to 2.0
(as much as it pains me to say that). 

v) We really need to modularize what we have so that it can be made
incrementally available to authors.  It fits the theme perfectly and will
streamline our ability to add more to XForms in the future. 

Please consider this carefully and provide your feedback as soon as
possible, esp. those who sent regrets for next week's call.  We need your
feedback this week if at all possible. 

Thanks, 
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Technical Staff Member
Lotus Forms Architect and Researcher
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com  

Blog:  <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer>
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
Blog RSS feed:
<http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw>
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/rss/JohnBoyer?flavor=rssdw