[whatwg] Web Forms 2.0 Feedback

[Dean Edwards]

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Csaba Gabor wrote:
>>2.  Repetition model.
>>The Draft has a huge amount of space devoted to this,
>>but I haven't been able to think of a single compelling
>>argument for it.  Most of the control enhancements such
>>as validation are conveniences, after all, but what they
>>have going for them is that they are very compact.  This
>>repetition model is huge and messy and there are simple
>>javascript programming methods that allow you to do the
>>same thing.  This developer's opinion is that I would
>>far rather roll my own and not even have the possibility
>>of using this construct.
> 

I'd be interested to know what your home-rolled solution would look 
like. If we can cater for your requirements then we have a flexible model.

Yes, there are already JavaScript alternatives but they are difficult to 
produce and become even more complex when trying for a cross-browser 
solution. What I like about the WF2 Repetition Model is that caters for 
99% of cases. There will always be edge cases but existing DOM methods, 
as you say, provide a means for building particular models already. In 
other words, if you feel that the Repetition Model is inadequate, please 
specify...

> 
> Yeah, several people have said that. We're thinking about removing it. On 
> the other hand, several people have said that it is a godsend and that 
> they are so happy it is there because they are fed up of rolling their 
> own. At the moment it's about equally matched, in fact.
> 
> The model is pretty simple and relatively easy to implement, so I'm 
> leaning towards keeping it.
> 

Ian, I thought we'd sorted this out. We had exactly the same discussion 
a few weeks back and nobody came up with any objections to the current 
model. I quite like Olav's idea to separate the Repetition Model from 
the existing WF2 spec. This would give us time to discuss it a bit more 
without impacting the rest of WF2. Maybe the Repetition Model should be 
separate anyway? Personally, if I was considering using it on a site, 
I'd prefer to print off a separate spec to read. But that's just me. I 
/do/ recognise that this is a bit of an editorial headache however... ;-)

-dean