RE: Schema Modularisation in XForms (Was: xslt stylesheet for xforms to xhtml)

Replace XForms with SOAP and you see that by doing so, you kill interop and
the usefullness of the technology. Imagine a world where web pages used
different syntaxs for its schema/dtd, and a browser couldn't display a page
without understanding that syntax. You would have a proprietary web.

You may dislike XML Schema, but it is the schema language of the W3C and the
one most industry players with the exception of Sun have outstanding support
for. It is the schema language of Web Services, and XForms and Web Services
compliment each other. Allowing XForms to use plugable languages for the
model will lead to a proprietary spec that will be useless on the web.

As an example, although Microsoft is using XML Schema heavily across all
their tools and technologies so this isn't realistic, what you propose would
allow Microsoft to use say XDR to model an XForm. Then only Windows and
Internet Explorer could handle it. It would be a valid XForms
implementation, and with 90% of the market, would work most of the time, but
it wouldn't be right. Relax NG ceratinly has its uses, but interop over the
web isn't one of them.

David Cleary

-----Original Message-----
From: www-forms-request@w3.org [mailto:www-forms-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
AndrewWatt2001@aol.com
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 9:58 AM
To: MSeaborne@origoservices.com; xforms@yahoogroups.com; www-forms@w3.org;
www-forms-editor@w3.org
Subject: Schema Modularisation in XForms (Was: xslt stylesheet for xforms to
xhtml)
It seems to me that it would be very useful to have modularisation of schema
(the generic term) support in XForms, rather than a "hard-wired" need for
W3C XML Schema support.

For example, allowing Relax NG to be used, might open up XForms to a range
of mobile browsers at the limited functionality end which would have
difficulty in supporting XForms because it has difficulty in implementing
W3C XML Schema.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, it might be useful to be able to plug
in Schematron to apply rule-based business logic that W3C XML Schema, at
least in version 1.0, can't handle.

If XForms is to be universally accepted as a forms language which is
generally useful then it seems to me that it should allow a developer to
choose a schema language which meets a particular set of business needs,
whether or not those happen to be expressible in W3C XML Schema. I guess W3C
XML Schema, as applied in XForms, could be interpreted as locking a
developer in to a proprietary schema language.

Quite possibly these are questions we should have raised a long time ago but
it nonetheless seems to me to be good design to allow components - including
schema validation components - to be snapped in or out of an XForms design.

Andrew Watt

Received on Tuesday, 3 September 2002 09:56:20 UTC