Request For Feedback: Traits

Hi-

The SVG WG is interested in soliciting opinions, particularly from
implementors, about the 'traits' feature of the SVG uDOM. 

You can find a detailed description of the traits interface throughout the
current draft of the uDOM [1], and in specific in section A.7.12 TraitAccess
[2].

The SVG WG feels that this interface addresses many author-requested needs,
including the ability to access and set the animated or computed value of an
attribute, and to access individual components of microsyntaces such as the
numbers in rgb(0,0,0) and the path segments in a 'path' element's 'd'
attribute [3]. It also provides strong typing, which is useful even in
weakly-typed languages like EcmaScript since it can distinguish between
booleans, strings, and numbers (a useful feature for those who script SVG,
since DOM methods only return strings), and provides clear exception
messages for erroneous trait values, allowing for ease in debugging. The SVG
WG does not feel that it is a redundant feature to DOM 3, but is rather
complementary. 

Any criticism (or praise) of the 'traits' feature is very welcome. We are
especially interested in whether you see value in providing this mechanism
beyond the scope of Java, such as in EcmaScript, C#, or other languages. If
there are particular features that you feel are inappropriate or that
conflict with other specifications (such as DOM 3), and which would prevent
your adoption of 'traits', we encourage descriptions of those issues along
with proposed resolutions.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-SVGMobile12-20051207/svgudom.html
[2]
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-SVGMobile12-20051207/svgudom.html#svg::TraitAcc
ess
[3]
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-SVGMobile12-20051207/svgudom.html#Attribute_Nor
malization

Regards-
Doug Schepers,
on behalf of the SVG Working Group

doug.schepers@vectoreal.com
www.vectoreal.com ...for scalable solutions.

Received on Wednesday, 4 January 2006 04:31:06 UTC