[webkit-dev] XML Events in WebKit

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Antoine Quint wrote:
> > 
> > ...then you shouldn't be sending it over the wire, so it shouldn't 
> > matter... (You shouldn't send custom, aka proprietary, vocabularies 
> > over the wire, since you have no way to guarentee the end user can 
> > handle it.)
> 
> We're drifting away from the original topic a bit, but I'm wondering if 
> such a statement would jeopardize the validity of the existence of XBL, 
> or if you see XBL as a technology for standalone, browser-based 
> application? Personally, I see no big problem using custom grammars when 
> XBL is available on the client.

XBL, when used over the wire, is intended to be used to augment the 
presentation and behaviour of documents with semantics. For example, you 
could use it to take an HTML <select> element and make it look like a 
fancu map, or you could take a <table> and make it so that its column 
headers allow the table to be interactively sorted.

The XBL2 spec actually says this explicitly:

   The binding element defines a presentation and behavior binding. It 
   does not define an element's semantics. If an element has no semantics 
   when processed alone, then it has no semantics when processed with XBL.

   Sending markup that does not have well-defined semantics over the 
   network is bad practice. XBL is intended to be used to augment the user 
   experience, for instance by providing better quality widgets or 
   enhancing aesthetics. If the document being sent is unusable without 
   XBL, then XBL is being abused.

-- http://www.w3.org/TR/xbl/

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'