News Release: Web Application Workshop to Address Performance Challenges Across Platforms

W3C holds a workshop today in Dublin, Ireland, exploring new  
approaches to designing Web applications. The W3C's Workshop on  
Declarative Models of Distributed Web Applications is focused on  
making more effective Web applications available within a full range  
of environments - whether in the home, office or mobile settings. For  
more information, please contact Janet Daly, W3C Global  
Communications Officer, at +1 617 253 5884 <janet@w3.org> or contact  
the W3C Communications Team representative in your region.

=========================

Web Application Workshop to Address Performance Challenges Across  
Platforms
W3C Focuses on Methods and Technologies that Help Web Applications  
Work Seamlessly, Regardless of Device

Web resources

	This press release
		In English: http://www.w3.org/2007/06/dwa-pressrelease.html.en
		In French: http://www.w3.org/2007/06/dwa-pressrelease.html.fr
		In Japanese: http://www.w3.org/2007/06/dwa-pressrelease.html.ja

	Workshop Homepage
		http://www.w3.org/2007/02/dmdwa-ws/

	Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity
		http://www.w3.org/2007/uwa/

http://www.w3.org/ -- 5 June 2007 -- Today and tomorrow, Web  
application experts are coming together in Dublin, Ireland, to see  
how the use of declarative techniques that capture the application  
developer's intentions, rather than the exact means for how to  
realize them, could reduce the costs of developing and maintaining  
Web applications. The W3C's Workshop on Declarative Models of  
Distributed Web Applications is focused on making more effective Web  
applications available within a full range of environments - whether  
in the home, office or mobile settings. It is hosted by MobileAware  
with the support of the Irish State Development Agency, Enterprise  
Ireland.

"Developers spend a great deal of time and effort struggling with the  
details of how different browsers vary in their support for markup,  
stylesheets and scripting," explained Dave Raggett, W3C Activity Lead  
for the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity. "This will get even  
more complicated with the increasing range of devices being used to  
access the Web. This Workshop explores the opportunities for allowing  
developers to focus on the application and end-user experience,  
leaving the details for how this is to be realized to tools that deal  
with the capabilities and shortcomings of each device."

Web applications currently involve a considerable amount of scripting  
both in the Web page and Web server. Often, this also means reworking  
applications for different devices and environments. This Workshop  
will look at the potential for applying declarative techniques to  
describing Web applications, as a whole rather than just the markup  
downloaded to each device.

Today, server-side scripts are used extensively to generate client- 
side markup on the fly, and the cost of developing and maintaining  
these scripts represents an opportunity for declarative based  
approaches. The emergence of XML databases and XQuery looks  
promising. Likewise, the Semantic Web can be applied to representing  
and reasoning over descriptions of device capabilities and access  
control rules. Security and usability are key themes for realizing  
the potential for new kinds of Web applications, particularly, those  
involving richer access to device capabilities and to personal or  
confidential information.

An important consideration for the Workshop are the challenges raised  
in dealing with trust, identity, privacy and security. As  
applications require interactions with multiple devices - such as  
remote printers or other application servers, or ubiquitous  
applications that are run in response to external events - there  
needs to be a way to provide secure access to those devices without  
prompting multiple logins with each transaction.

W3C will make the Workshop program, position papers and presentations  
publically available from the Workshop page along with a summary of  
discussions.

Contact Americas, Australia --
     Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --
     Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
     Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium  
where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work  
together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission  
through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to  
ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are of  
the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and  
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the  
European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM)  
headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan,and has  
additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http:// 
www.w3.org/
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Received on Tuesday, 5 June 2007 14:00:07 UTC