Re: AJAX vs. Xforms

I think that there is necessarily reasonable to compare XForms and AJAX.
AJAX leverages DOM 1, CSS1, and HTML forms.
XForms is the standard that is applicable and very useful for DOM2, 
CSS2, and XHTML.
One of the real world problems faced with AJAX, is maintainability.  The 
inability to use HTML to create an adequate client side form is why AJAX 
exists but we need to view it as a mature technology with a very high 
development and maintenance cost (speaking from experience here :-).
So XForms is the leading edge of web development and should be viewed 
that way.  Most browser vendors have some form of plan to support XForms 
and given time it will become ubiquitous, just the same way that early 
browsers did not have javascript or even DHTML.
There are real advantages to using XForms, and comparing it to the take 
up of proprietary systems such as flash is not reasonable.  The same 
comparison could also be made of adobe pdf, which is of course everywhere.
My point here is that AJAX and XForms are complementary not competing.  
AJAX is mature and widespread, but XForms promises and can deliver on a 
host of other benefits as well as still being able to use AJAX 
technologies (not that I recommend that at all :-).

Received on Monday, 31 October 2005 20:22:24 UTC