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

>We've got on one side XForms, which is cool, good in many ways, but that 
>a non-neglible part of our community rejects and on the other WF2 which 
>has fewer features but has support from said non-negligible part of this 
>one same community. Can't we just figure out a way in which both cohabit 
>in the same space and send everyone to the pub to celebrate (and Ian can 
>have a cranberry juice if he doesn't want beer)? Isn't there a way that 
>WF2 and HTML Forms could be expressed conceptually as a layer atop 
>XForms (say with (s)XBL or something) and through convergence, 
>eventually reach a step where both technologies become close to the 
>point of being the same one (several years down the line)? I'm 
>handwaving but I'm entirely convinced that there's a way there. 

How can you handwave yet be entirely convinced at the same time?
The technical details of what you propose, the part that's getting
skipped in the hand-wave, are insurmountable.

As a result, it's very difficult to ascribe to a policy of appeasement.
We can't just keep the peace by everyone going to their separate corners
and doing what they want and making nice when they look away from the
corner and see each other.

The what-wg proposes a style of extending *the same language* that is
also being extended by xforms, but in non-compatible ways.  

The data lives in the ui controls, so the properties of the data end
up in the ui controls, so the ui design dictates the data schema, so
the xml submitted to the server has to be transformed on the server
side into the namespace and schema desired by the entity that deploys
the form and expects to process its results.  Then, the server side
processing module has to be given super-user status to act like anyone
once it has the data in a form that can be used to talk to the real
server side applications.

But I digress.  The fact remains that you can also implement a 
80% of a fraction of xforms on a rainy weekend, too.  But, the issue
is whether a weekend of hacking by a lone programmer's really 
constitutes leading the web to its full potential.  

John Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Product Architect and Research Scientist
PureEdge Solutions Inc.

Received on Thursday, 17 March 2005 01:11:19 UTC