Cart
|
[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: The Browser Wars are Dead! Long Live the Browser Wars!
 On Friday, October 18, 2002, at 07:59 PM, Paul Prescod wrote: > Agreed! In fact, even well-architected desktop apps have a clear > separation of concerns between the user interface, the control logic > and the data. Today, it makes increasing sense to express that > separation using XML over sockets (rather than putting SQL in the UI). > And this is better how? You swap one linear syntax over sockets for another linear syntax over sockets and this is supposed to make it elegant because its <genuflect>XML</genuflect>? These two approaches are fundamentally the same thing. > > My hypothesis is that rich, browser based GUI interfaces are > inevitable. Yes I agree with this. > Based on dHTML, XUL, dSVG, HTML, java, .NET? I can't predict yet. > These days I'm experimenting with dynamic SVG. I'd love to see XUL > standardized. No, none of these are enough (well, maybe java, only the current implementations aren't up to it). These only specify *appearances* not behavior. We want to get behavior into the UI layer. No more elaborate syntax is going to solve this problem. The problem as I see it is that XML is a retrograde development in computer science and application architecture. In the early software days the emphasis was on behavior (C, Fortran, Pascal, procedures, functions) and data was secondary. Presently the emphasis appears to be data formats (and serial ones at that). Somewhere in between was a balanced approach that bound behavior with data into entities we called "objects". It is my opinion that browsers need to move from glorified page layout engines with ugly scripting languages towards full blown distributed object engines that happen to have rich page layout capabilities. Let us not forget that the browser was designed to share documents. Application delivery was a secondary concern and its definitely a force fit. The paradigm is wrong and switching from HTML to ZZML isn't going to change that. I don't hold out any hope at all from the Java people or the .NET people - neither one has a grasp of what flexible objects look like (the compiler type checking semantics in their languages and VMs are unforgiving and brittle). The best approach I've seeing is from the WebObjects people at Apple and that is falling flat due to limitations in the client layer - either Java Swing applications or HTML in browsers. We need a completely new client geared towards distributed applications. Possibly one of the Smalltalks - they're already incredibly portable and provide flexible object engines. Unfortunately, none of their custodians have the focus to build them out in this fashion. Todd Blanchard Systems Architect. 
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! 
Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|
|||||||||
