[whatwg] rel/rev for <form> ?

[Charles Iliya Krempeaux]

Hello,

On 11/5/05, ROBO Design <robodesign at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 00:17:27 +0200, Charles Iliya Krempeaux
> <supercanadian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> <...>
> >
> > Let me ask you some questions.  (Your answers will help me know how to
> > explain things better.)

[...]

> >     * Do you think being able to provide semantics between 2 resources
> > -- between 2 URI's -- is important?
>
> Yes, but not really for <form>.
>
> Reason: generally speaking, an URI specified in the ACTION attribute of
> the <form> is not a web page that shows general information, good for web
> crawlers nor the like. I wouldn't like bots going crazy in my <form>s :).

I think I see one thing I didn't explain properly.  Web crawlers would
NOT "submit" forms.  But they would discover them.  In essence, "rel"
and "rev" based formats on the <form> element would allow web crawlers
to discover API's.  And (web crawlers or user agents, etc) could
present these forms to the user, and allow the user to fill them in
and "submit" them outside of the web page they are embedding in. 
Essentially, "rel" and "rev" based formats on the <form> element could
allow you to turn the <form> element into a kind of IDL.

Consider a blog post.  We have rel-author to specify the author blog
post.  We have rel-tag to specify the keywords phrases the author
tagged the blog post with.  We have rel-license to license of the blog
post.  (And all these can be done within the body of the blog post.) 
But how do you specify the API to post a comment to the blog post? 
How do you specify the API to change how you tagged the blog post? 
(Having "rel" and "rev" based formats on the <form> element could
allow you to do this.)


[...]

>
> >     * Do you think that be able to use other HTTP methods, other than
> > GET, is important?
>
> In this case, not. The way I see it, web crawlers, extensions, user
> scripts, user agents and the like can use the URIs of any resource, based
> on the REL. For example, rel="author": this *should* give an URI to the
> author of the web page, but how would this work with a <form>? Would you
> require it to use POST or another method? Forms are more complex than
> simple links, they require user interaction (fill the fields and most
> likely a JavaScript on the page that validates the values).
>
> Also, forms are not for "general availability", in the sense of ... web
> crawlers should *not* try to submit them (that's what the bad spam bots do
> when trying to post spam comments).

Again, I am NOT suggesting that web crawlers fill them in.  I am
suggestion that web cralwers use "rel" and "rev" formats on <form>'s
to discover API's.

[...]


> > (One thing though.  Re-reading my message over, it seems to kind of
> > have a "rude" connotation.  But please note that is not my intent.)
>
> True, but no problems :).
>
> My general idea is this: I'm not against adding rel/rev to <form>, but I
> currently do not see any precise example of a use case.

What's driven me to suggest it is to allow for the discovering of
API's.  So that a <form> element with a "rel" or "rev" could act like
an IDL.

> Also, you need to take into consideration the implications of having
> rel/rev for <form>.

Could you elaborate on this please.

[...]


See ya

--
     Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.

     charles @ reptile.ca
     supercanadian @ gmail.com

     developer weblog: http://ChangeLog.ca/
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