Re: Is or isn't scripting needed, was RE: XForms vs. Web Forms

On Wednesday 2005-03-16 15:31 -0500, Eric S. Fisher wrote:
> Second, the more I follow this discussion, the more confused I get.  WF2  
> is supposed to be backward compatible, yet to use its full functionality,  
> you need a new browser or yet another plug-in?

To use its full functionality, you do need a new browser.  However, the
same WF2 content still works in old browsers.  It just doesn't take
advantage of the new features.

> How is that preferable to  a clean, fresh XForms implementation?
> Especially considering that any  "new browser" will always support the
> old code anyway?

It's preferable because authors can start using the new features and
providing the benefits of those features to users even when a
significant portion (even a majority) of the users don't have a browser
that supports WF2.  This situation would allow the deployment of WF2 to
provide an incentive for users to upgrade their browsers, since the
pages will work *better* in the new browsers.

> And what use is it to be able to display a form and not have the  
> client-side validation work properly?  If you can't be sure a form  
> submission will come in with the same level of validation every time, you  
> then must code your server side either to test for the presence of the  
> validation facilities in the browser (more code) or not trust the client  
> side validations and repeat them at the server side (more code, but  
> required anyway if the above test fails).

You have to validate on the server side anyway (unless you want people
to buy your $1000 widgets for $5 by twiddling the form data using a
modified browser or by sending the request manually).

-David

-- 
L. David Baron                                <URL: http://dbaron.org/ >
          Technical Lead, Layout & CSS, The Mozilla Foundation