TV Raman on XForms and Screen-Scraping

TV Raman, who ought to know a thing or two about screen scraping, comments on Sam Ruby's HTML Reunification and shows that the shibumiscript approach makes things easier for scripts, not harder.

Needless to say, we agree.

What is shibumiscript?

In Japanese, shibumi is an aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty. I've created the portmanteau shibumiscript to describe a way of writing web forms, dynamic web pages, and web applications using the simple expressiveness of HTML markup yet obtain the stylistic advantages of AJAX libraries. As one of the editors of the XForms series of specifications, I've been long interested in unobtrusive, declarative ways of expressing intent and content. shibumiscript leads Unobtrusive JavaScript into the sublime. In shibumiscript, I'll be exploring ways to fuse the big ideas from XForms with the fluidity of AJAX libraries, and what Dave Raggett calls the "extraordinary success" of HTML. In doing so, I'll be drawing on Mark Birbeck, Erik Bruchez, Micah Dubinko, John Boyer, TV Raman, and others whose names will appear here as their influence is shown.