Re: IBM Position Statement on XForms and Web Forms 2.0

Hi Lachlan,

This is exactly the kind of dialogue we need to be having in order for 
everyone to start finding common ground and stop misunderstanding each 
other.

I believe you are reading some specs far too rigidly.  Please see the 
first line of Appendix C of XHTML 1, which says it is informative (as 
opposed to normative).  So, just in principle you can't use it to say 
something is stricly illegal.

Second, XHTML is an XML application, which supports namespaces, so why 
would the guidelines cease to apply because a particular feature of XML is 
used in the XHTML?

Third,  I do appreciate insanity being equated with going against 
something I might have said :-), except that in this case I was talking 
about enticing content toward XML well-formedness even when it is served 
with the type text/html.  Well-formedness constraints don't apply to 
text/html content right now, but it's also not illegal content, and 
there's nothing unfortunate about delivering XML compliant HTML as 
text/html.  A host of web browsers (including IE!) have no problems with 
this content.

So, far from my position being an idealistic one, I am actually 
questioning why the WF2 beliefs against XML are so rigidly held in the 
absence of any strong technical obstacles.

Thanks,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Product Architect/Research Scientist
Co-Chair, W3C XForms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com  http://www.ibm.com/software/

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer





Lachlan Hunt <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au> 
Sent by: www-forms-request@w3.org
08/31/2006 04:36 AM

To
Jim Ley <jim@jibbering.com>
cc
www-forms@w3.org, public-appformats@w3.org
Subject
Re: IBM Position Statement on XForms and Web Forms 2.0







Jim Ley wrote:
>> In fact, formsPlayer seems to add support for XForms in text/html 
>> documents, which is obviously non-conformant, because text/html is not 
>> XML!
> 
> Even I can't actually say that, and I want to, and it's unfortunate, but 

> XHTML 1.0 can be served as text/html, so therefore text/html can be XML, 
of 
> course that's bad, but it's a fact of life.

That is only true when the document conforms to XHTML 1.0 Appendix C. 
Appendix C does not apply to any other XML language, including XForms, 
MathML or even XHTML 1.1.  Thus, given that a mixed namespace document 
is *not* strictly "XHTML 1.0", the Appendix C Guidelines don't apply. 
Therefore, an XHTML document containing XForms (or any other XML 
language) cannot be served as text/html.

However, even if I'm wrong about that, doing so is insane and goes 
directly against what John Boyer wrote earlier in the thread:

| [...] it is important to do our best to preserve the XML basis for
| new features to help entice content toward well-formedness.

Well-formedness constraints don't apply to text/html, so that ideal is 
simply not being preserved.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/