RE: Open systems / Freedom ( was RE: The Web as an Application)

 
Hi Liam,

Thanks for chipping in.

> 
> For me personally, the main reason not to have arbitrary XML 
> on the Web on my own Web sites is financial:
> 1. the search engines don't know how to generate good 
> snippets (no architectural forms); 

I have not seen too much on AF, but as I understand the idea, it
is like a minimalist transformation allowing presentation of
elements and attributes in generic form (e.g. atom:feed/atom:title -> html/head/title)

I would have said this is not too important, since a media type
registration would define the format's semantics in its own terms,
and as that format became more broadly supported, custom search engines
would arise if valuable.  But having a "web" of a custom media
type would only be possible by means of links, which are a prerequisite
to having a 'web'.

Also, I would think that the transformation to presentation form
for the user would be done by the js in an 'api', or code-on-demand
in the classical REST sense.

Perhaps I don't understand the value of AF enough.


> 2. No way to include 
> JavaScript, so hard to support ads.

Good point.  How about a processing instruction:

<?xml-script type="application/javascript" src="..." ?>

Browsers already support loading of xslt via a PI, perhaps they'd be
more amenable to a PI-based hypermedia approach.


> 
> Without addressing 1 and 2, I can't afford to move my own 
> personal Web sites to XML, and even if I did, it wouldn't be 
> in my users' best interests. So for me personally, those are 
> the issues that must be addressed first. 

> But if those were 
> addressed, I'd be interested in thinking more about linking 
> from one page I can't currently deploy to another page I 
> can't currently deploy :-)

I don't understand this.


Cheers,
Peter

Received on Monday, 10 June 2013 12:47:48 UTC