Draft outline of XG report for discussion in today's telecon

All -- here's a draft outline of what we might shoot for in our XG report
based on work to date...let's discuss during our telecon today.  As a
heads-up I only have 30 min today due to some on-going end-of-the-year
planning issues.

We can get a sense of whether this is going in the right direction and then
iterate a bit more on the email list and then next week...

Thanks, Charlie

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Standards-based Rich Web Applications

I.    Introduction – the need for “Rich” Web applications
      a.    Evolution of the web as the platform for high-function
applications, not just “content”

II.   What do we mean by “Rich” anyway?
      a.    It’s really about function – apps that can support core
processes: not just “transient” etc
      b.    Apps can be Rich in different ways
            i.    Presentation: Rich media, the common meaning of RIAs
            ii.   Data: Validation, intelligent prefilling to avoid data
entry
            iii.  Logic/Control: Rich interaction, supportive and
intelligent data entry, context sensitive controls, skipping steps etc
            iv.   Server connection: async interaction to support all of
the above

III.  Benefits of being Rich
      a.    Improved user experience
      b.    Performance
      c.    Accessibility
      d.    Platform portability – different UIs for different platforms
      e.    Offline support
      f.    Composability – white box extensibility (the App as extension
point)

IV.   Architectural patterns in Rich Web Applications – the Backplane
      a.    MVC patterns for Web applications
      b.    Coordination patterns to aid transparency and composition:
event-based patterns
      c.    Implicit coordination pattern: “data as API”
      d.    Submission patterns
            i.    Submission as submission: page complete
            ii.   Incremental data refresh
            iii.  Delegation of event processing to the server (field to
field logic)
      e.    Vendor-centric examples in practice today: MXML, XAML, Laszlo

V.    Addressing the platform support question for Rich Web Applications –
      a.    XML on the client – Javascript as tag library language not
programming model
      b.    The Ubiquity project example for XForms
      c.    Potential for other namespaces where processing models are
important, i.e where XML is beyond a data-format but also an application
model:
            i.    SMIL
            ii.   SVG (depends also on having lower-level graphics, eg.
Canvas, support)
            iii.  Open Document Format (ODF)
            iv.   Industry vertical standards, e.g. XBRL, ACORD, HL7
            v.    Long-tail of “Niche” namespaces: molecular markup
language (name???)

VI.   Getting from here to there: bridging from HTML to RIAs
      a.    RIA patterns “projected” onto HTML
      b.    Example: XForms for HTML
      c.    Implementation in the Ubiquity project

VII.  Examples of Rich Web Applications from the Backplane XG’s work
      a.    MVC pattern: YUI widgets with XForms data binding
      b.    Submission pattern: XForms-based Dojo data provider
      c.    Implicit coordination pattern: data as API
            i.    SMIL+XHTML
            ii.   Voice+XHTML via data model not controls (i.e. beyond X+V)
            iii.  ODF+XHTML

VIII. Going forward: potential for future work/exploration
      a.    Leveraging RIA patterns for common end-to-end programming model
            i.    Deployment-time positioning of validation logic
            ii.   Smarter network intermediaries – data filling at portals
etc
      b. Others…

Charles Wiecha
Manager, Multichannel Web Interaction
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
P.O. Box 704
Yorktown Heights, N.Y.  10598
Phone: (914) 784-6180, T/L 863-6180, Cell: (914) 320-2614
wiecha@us.ibm.com