Jibbering Musings

The Web Application Workshop is coming up, Hixie seems to think the result will be an SVG/XForms combination Working Group. I really hope that’s not the case, and it’s not the idea I get from the position papers.

As Hixie notes, many of the Position papers encourage SVG as the rendering language, this I agree is essential for web-applications to support, but it’s also essential that it support HTML+CSS so it can be authored in IE6 - web applications need to become much more decoupled from the language.

What web-applications need mostly are a standard Object Model to do the useful things - mostly rubber stamping the current state-of-the art, getting Opera to support the XMLHttpRequest object would be a huge first step - Mozilla, Safari, IE all support it, if Opera did too, I wouldn’t need much more other than a client-side store, and access to interesting client features in appropriate security environments.

My prediction will be for a Working Group Chartered to standardise an Object Model, and a generic XML format for describing various things that can be styled with XSLT (to HTML), CSS, or SVG and actioned with script.

It’s less pessimisistic than Hixie’s view, and he’s more likely to know, but I hope I’m write, it’ll be a waste of a plane fare if not - although the three days in SFO either side might make the trip more useful.