W3C Starts New Groups for Web API’s & RIA Standards

I’m glad Flash will be shielded from this. The words “standards” and “Rich Internet Application” feel like oil and water to me. While I believe usability standards are of the utmost need right now, I disagree on standardizing MXML; it’s already follows the XML schema, is well formed, and it validates against its DTD (which was shoe-horned into a DTD which is no fault of Macromedia’s, just the odd combination of a rich markup representing containers combined with a strict tag definition)… what really needs to be standardized about it? More so, why must MXML validate against the standard the W3C sets when it’s already valid XML? The last hypothetical question, “What defines a web application that uses markup to build it?” will hopefully answer all, and spawn (and answer) many other fundamental & important questions.

In all fairness, I am jumping the gun pre-judging deliverables on an initiative that has barely gotten started.

Anyway, snippet from the first deliverable.

This deliverable should be based on an existing application/UI format, such as Mozilla’s XUL, Microsoft’s XAML, Macromedia’s MXML or Laszlo Systems’ LZX, provided the owners of the format are willing to contribute. The format should allow embedded program code. This format, combined with the deliverables below and existing technologies including XHTML, CSS, XForms, SVG and SMIL, should provide a strong basis for rich client application development.

Web Application Formats

Programming Interfaces (AJAX/XMLHttpRequest)

Via Manish Jethani.

3 Replies to “W3C Starts New Groups for Web API’s & RIA Standards”

  1. Hmmm It seems you are mixing a few things.

    There are incentives to have XML interfaces languages. For example, XUL, XBL are examples. So when there’s a good practice on a topic, it’s good to standardize it then there’s a clear reference for future use and more a Royalty Free reference to implement by anyone

    Another aspect is AJAX like applications or XMLHttpRequest, which has no specification for now. Most of the development are a reverse engineering of the initial feature implemented in IE. Having a well defined specification for this will promote interoperability and then people will be able to develop applications in a clear environment.

    Hope it helps to understand.

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