RE: XForms and Web Forms 2.0

 
Hello Dharmesh,
 
"We are working with some of the insurers and brokers who state "poor
usability" of the iMarkets XForms as a key issue.".
 
This is very true, in fact I am really surprised at the quality of some the
forms (no pun intended here). Currently I am working with a major
organisation in redesigning how forms are being used in their organisation.
We feel that now Microsoft's Workflow Foundation is mature enough to be used
in "production" the next generation of XForms will be written to drive
"state-machine workflow".
 
Instead of having the flow of control be "top to bottom", a state-machine
workflow is modelled as a set of discrete "states".  At each state you can
have the ability to initialise, and then listen for events.  When the events
come into the workflow you can then execute some activities in a sequential
manner, and then potentially change the state of the workflow to another
state.
 
For me the WF2 vs. XForms is just noise, XForms has well defined data model
and when used in conjunction with XML  Events allows a very efficient data
bus. One thing for sure I would like to see is that the specification for
Web Inclusion Compound Document (WICD) reaches at least CR status then we
all can understand how best the W3C sees mixing XML namespaces working (use
of object tag or XInclude for example).
 
 I think a few large organisations are also have similar projects (IBM?).
 
Kind Regards
Francisco


  _____  

From: www-forms-request@w3.org [mailto:www-forms-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Dharmesh Mistry
Sent: 05 September 2006 01:47
To: Lachlan Hunt; Steven Pemberton
Cc: www-forms@w3.org
Subject: RE: XForms and Web Forms 2.0


This is VERY useful...........Thank you.
 
However I should point out, that the "entire British Insurance Industry" is
somewhat of an over-statement.
 
Most of the insurers in the UK ONLY use XForms within the iMarket portal,
which is one of several channels to market for them. iMarket is part of
Polaris which publishes XML standards for General and SME Commercial
insurance products only, so a smaller segment of insurance.
 
We are working with some of the insurers and brokers who state "poor
usability" of the iMarkets XForms as a key issue. (This maybe just
design/implementation and not necessarily a constraint of xForms.) The first
time that these companies had heard of xForms was when iMarket used them, to
my knowledge no UK insurer uses them outside of iMarket.
 
The real winners could be Banks, but none that I have approached will
consider xForms currently.
 
I agree with Mark Birbeck, however taking a pure technology route we all
know that BetaMax was better than VHS, but VHS won the standards war.
 
I also agree that the WCS needs to make a stand on ONE standard not two.
Without agreement the big software vendors will have room to create their
own standards (xPDF, ActionScript(Flash), XAML etc....)
 
Rightly or wrongly, IMHO developers will side with WHAT-WG (Web Form 2.0)
because it is leveraging their existing skills rather than demanding a "step
change" in their development skills. (Quote from Steve Pemberton I heard a
couple of years ago at the UK IBM briefing on xForms).
 
 
Kind regards..............Dharmesh
 
 
 
 

  _____  

From: Lachlan Hunt [mailto:lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au]
Sent: Mon 9/4/2006 3:42 PM
To: Steven Pemberton
Cc: Dharmesh Mistry; www-forms@w3.org
Subject: Re: XForms and Web Forms 2.0



Steven Pemberton wrote:
> Whenever I give a talk on XForms, I try to give an indicative list of
> some of the companies using XForms.
>
> http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/05-26-steven-XForms/#users

But as you say on that page: "first adopters are within companies [...]
that have control over the software environment used."

In the real world, however, developers simply don't have that luxury.
The solution we develop needs to work in an environment where publishers
have absolutely no control over the user's system.

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