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RE: ANN: new markup language for user interfaces

• To: <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: ANN: new markup language for user interfaces
• From: "Ramin Firoozye" <ramin@w...>
• Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 11:19:04 -0800
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <JD2URL42YWHEBAUQ61JRNVSDCED9R.3c58024a@MChamp>

Thank you Mike. I was having the same thoughts. The XALT idea is
technologically interesting. I'm trying hard to visualize some use-cases (or
areas where the XALT model does things better over existing solutions) but
am having trouble with it.

I can imagine uses in applications where *really* dynamic interface layouts
are needed (i.e. XSLT generated live dialogs based on some data or user
input). The only area I can think this might be handy is in creating
internationalized dialog boxes, where the entire layout of the screen might
change based on the language selection. That sort of thing.

Some other uses might be to map the XALT language into a general purpose UI
like HTML or WML (but then you start suffering from LCD issues), or perhaps
as a 'resource' description language that is baked into an application (much
the way it's done on Windows or Mac), or even mapping the XALT language to
low-level Windows or Mac resources as a sort of cross-platform UI resource
description language. I don't know. I'm reaching here. Besides it starts
stepping into XUL territory.

The way they have it now, tied into Swing and requiring the 'sandbox' etc,
I'm having trouble seeing the uses. Please don't get me wrong. I think it's
pretty high on the cool factor. Perhaps the author(s) would care to shed
some light.

Just my $0.02.
Ramin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Champion [mailto:mc@x...]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 6:25 AM
> To: xml-dev@l...
> Subject: Re:  ANN: new markup language for user interfaces
>
>
> 1/29/2002 7:09:21 PM, Ramesh Gupta <ramesh@e...> wrote:
>
> >eNode is pleased to announce a powerful and flexible markup language
> for
> >describing user interfaces of web applications with
> real functionality.
> >
> >The language is designed to describe complex user interfaces and
> related
> >collections of objects as completely as possible using an XML-based
> syntax.
>
> This is interesting, but I'm not quite sure what to make of it. "A
> declarative XML-based language for developing Java applications" is a
> capsule description that seems to cover it. The vision described on
> the web page sounds a bit like the use case for Curl, but it
> leverages more of the "Web" (broadly defined, please don't flame me!)
> infrastructure such as XML and Java.  But unlike Curl and DHTML it
> doesn't run in the browser, but can be used to access objects/data
> over the Web ... Help me out here with the "vision thing."  And how
> do you expect developers to distribute their infastructure for their
> XALT applications if thay don't run in the browser? Also, Google has
> very little information on eNode.com; can you say any more about the
> company, its resources, its backers ...?
>
> This could be another historic showdown between "worse is better"
> (dynamic HTML) and "better is better" (Curl or eNode/XALT with their
> presumably better visuals, performance, exploitation of the desktop
> CPU, etc.).  I'm getting old and crotchety and have vowed to never
> again bet against "worse is better" in the marketplace, but I'm
> hoping to be wrong one of these times.  I would tend (after a very
> cursory reading) tend to believe that the eNode approach is more
> likely to succeed than Curl because it leverages all the lessons that
> Sun has learned about making client-side Java work better, leverages
> XML and the DOM, and can more plausibly claim to be standards-based.
>
> Anyway, this is all just an invitation to discuss these issues; I
> have no strong opinons or vested interests here.
>
>
>
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