Re: A rose by any other name...

1+ On what Sabastian says and to also confirm his recollection of
history.
On a side note, when the name XForms was proposed I had
light-heartedly suggested putting the X at the end as opposed to
the front  produces a more notorious sounding name;-)

I think attempting to convey everything in a name is a losing
cause, nor are successful technologies predicated by
well-pronouncable, catchy names. If that were the case, WWW, HTTP
and HTML  would have never seen the light of day.

Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer writes:
 > 
 > John,
 > 
 > > So, isn't it time for the name XForms (plant) to be changed to something 
 > > more reflective of what XForms is (a rose)?
 > 
 > I agree. Some history from my side, initially this was called
 > XHTML Extended Forms. Since that name was too long, XForms,
 > became the shortcut, however it was initially not the Shortname
 > for XML Forms, but for XHTML Extended Forms. The original design
 > was quite close to what WF2 is doing today, however we felt
 > it wasn't enough, hence XForms, the shortcut name, echoed back
 > into the early design phase and really made an Extended Forms
 > from HTML become something bigger and more closer to XML.
 > 
 > So the naming wasn't really too well thought out. However, for
 > the early years, it was good to somewhat hide something bigger
 > under the Forms umbrella, a more ambitious name would have caused
 > more curiousity from those parties never reading a spec and basing 
 > strong oppinions anticipating the area of the technology
 > derived only from its naming and potentially causing more delays in
 > a somewhat difficult political environment.
 > 
 > Similarly the entire Dynamic Web Application naming space is today
 > quite overloaded and somewhat antique. Therefore I am quite happy
 > that XForms is an idiom in itself regardless of trends, even
 > though it doesn't fully describe the technology.
 > 
 > Concluding, I'd like us to keep the XForms name but add something
 > meaningful to it. I'd also suggest making that the name for the
 > next version, ideally moving directly to 2.0 (which 1.1. could
 > have well been in retrospec):
 > 
 > "XForms 2.0: (TBD)"
 > 
 > OR maybe it might not be too late to just add such additional,
 > explanatory name to the XForms 1.1. Spec when we transition
 > to PR? After all, this isn't technical and doesn't change
 > anything with the technology.
 > 
 > All the best,
 > 
 > - Sebastian
 > 
 > PS: I like the buzz coming from the eXist community around "XRX"
 > (XQuery/REST/XForms) describing the new end-to-end XML stack
 > thats giving XForms such a boost. Maybe food for thought here.
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

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Received on Friday, 25 January 2008 22:47:19 UTC