FYI. AngularJS is a declarative framework as well – conceptually very similar
to XForms
From: William Velasquez [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:21 AM
To: [email protected]; Manuel Lautenschlager
Cc: Paul Vanderveen; [email protected]; Forms WG;
[email protected]
Subject: RE: [Xsltforms-support] Is XForms a failure to learn from?
Ihe Onwuka wrote:
> To me XForms's biggest crime is that it is a declarative technology (yes it
> can be complex but so are lot's of over things) and alot of programmers are
> not comfortable with something that is not inherently procedural. Heck they
> even created languages to proceduralize SQL the only declarative language
> that managed to slip under the cover.
Excellent point!
And most of the XML tools are declarative too (XSLT, XProc, Schema languages)
so the “XML-phobia” can be explained as “declarative-phobia”.
De: Ihe Onwuka [mailto:[email protected]]
Enviado el: jueves, 16 de octubre de 2014 10:51 a. m.
Para: Manuel Lautenschlager
CC: Paul Vanderveen;
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>;
Forms WG; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Asunto: Re: [Xsltforms-support] Is XForms a failure to learn from?
On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:46 PM, Manuel Lautenschlager
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
What is lightweight?
For me lightweight is: Parsing takes only little resources.
I'm not sure why we are bothering about how much work the machine does unless
we have a specific performance problem so I smell a red herring here ....but
..... doesn't that depend to extent on what you are running in your environment.
If you are running Python or R or anything other than javascript in addition to
your interpreter you also have to load a JSON library.
Implementation is easy with a few lines of code. Only necessary functionality.
Well that depends on whether one believes that transformation's are necessary
functionality because (discounting the efforts of the XML community i.e xslt3
json doesn't have a proper transformation language).
It also depends on whether one believes that a query language is necessary
because (discounting the efforts of the XML community i.e jsoniq) json doesn't
have a proper query language.
So what is left of that argument..... that being able to do sod-all is a
virtue. Nah! Rather you have to write an application program for everything -
we've known for 35 years (at least) that's a bad idea. For one thing it
destroys data independence because people will tend to tightly couple their
code to the extant data model (if for no other reason then the obsession with
"efficiency").
Not lightweight is: Very complex framework that tries to cover everything.
The fallacy in there is that because the framework allows you to "cover
everything" you have to. That's not true. There is no rule that says your XML
must have a schema. There is nothing stopping you from writing a transformation
to create a simpler XML subset if it will do the job.
I’m sure XML needs a few more lines to implement than JSON.
It's a semantically richer data format, that's not unreasonable.
But what really is heavyweight are many standards. Like SOAP and XFORMS.
The JSON world doesn’t have this problem, they don’t have standards like
XForms. (And no alternative)
The heavyweight lightweight thing is because JSON world is probably occupied
with comparatively trivial data models. Murex, XBRL, Biztalk, UBL are not
suddenly going to become lightweight if they were converted to JSON. But the
real fallacy is that something implemented in XML is necessarily complex or
heavyweight. Suppose you don't need schemas for a particular JSON
implementation. Chances are you wouldn't need them for an XML implementation
either but if ever you did in the future you won't find that you have taken a
long journey up s**t creek and thrown away your paddle.
XForms is a ambitious . It's complexity is not a function of the data model and
one is not compelled to use every facility in the standard.
You don’t need to learn how to use XForms. You need a form, you can start right
on with a language you know (Javasript)
People use other libraries to create forms, like AngularJS, and have a handmade
component for each control.
Actually every developer/company has its own UI-Style, and so they can create
the Framework they need.
Often it’s only small things that XForms can’t do. Like working with
Websockets. Interactive status for an order form.
With XForms the standard tells you how to work. With that you always have
limitations.
I accepted these limitations with the benefit that I am working with a standard.
That “should” mean: sustainability, better support and documentation, many
different applications you can run your code on.
Unfortunately the reality is, that people are talking about dead standards,
just when I am happy with them.
I must say it took a while until I got used to XForms. For me that was
investing lots of time.
I used Betterform, which is the opposite of lightweight. But it is cool. The
disadvantage is: When you work with the XForms language,
It’s a big step adding new components and scripts. This is much easier when you
build up your UI from scratch.
Are you sure that's a problem caused by the XForm standard. I recall that when
I built an XForm I was able to modularize much of the code and the ability to
deploy XSLT transformations was a key part of that.
That is the problem with standards that cover almost everything. You get used
to it, and try to do everything with the standard.
Otherwise you can’t port it to another platform.
BTW. Just because somebody of W3C says it’s dead, it doesn’t need to be dead or
a failure. But except of the XML-Community, nobody knows XForms.
I like XForms and I hope that it’s not dead!
Manuel
Ps.: When tools can do less, you need to learn less. That why people use JSON
Being able to do sod-all is only a virtue if you actually need to do sod-all.
I think most of the claims emanating from the JSON community do not withstand
scrutiny or like for like comparisons. To me XForms's biggest crime is that it
is a declarative technology (yes it can be complex but so are lot's of over
things) and alot of programmers are not comfortable with something that is not
inherently procedural. Heck they even created languages to proceduralize SQL
the only declarative language that managed to slip under the cover.
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