AJAX is simple. XForms is simpler.

I came across a short, fun, hype-free summary of AJAX by Daniel Lorch. I thought it would be fun to take a similar look at some of the parts of XForms that declaratively wrap up the same concepts: the Instance DOM (data DOM), Submission (XHR), and Output (presentation without DOM mutation). Read my article AJAX is Simple; XForms is Simpler. There's another article to be written about validation using XForms client-side, declarative constructs, but it's off tangent from Daniel's article. Point 5 of Daniel's article says, "Doing AJAX by hand is certainly possible and helps understanding it, but using a good library makes the whole experience more comfortable." The shibumiscript approach is to consider XForms a way of expressing intent, and letting AJAX do the work for you. A challenge: Can XForms do better? Yes, by better integration with XHTML (single namespace), and by authoring conveniences that reduce typing and add defaults. Look for more of these in upcoming "XForms Simplification" from XForms 1.2 from the W3C.

Ubiquity XForms

Mark Birbeck of formsPlayer and John Boyer of IBM have put together a small team that should be the start of something big: nothing short of Ubiquity for XForms. Ubiquity is an all-AJAX library using YUI (and with an eye on scriptaculous and others coming up) that provides XForms functionality right in today's browsers, and mixes well with AJAX code. With the backing of IBM and Mark's new company webBackplane and the involvement of expert Paul Butcher, this project is sure to be a rallying point for the kinds of ideas shibumiscript is about. I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of contributions Ubiquity gets from the community.