[whatwg] Web Forms 2 Repetition Model—please reinstate on specification

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2011, whatwg at aaabit.com wrote:
>
> Please reinstate this feature (Web Forms 2 / Repetition Model) on the 
> official specification.
> 
> My use-case/ justification is explained on this forum thread:
> 
> http://forums.whatwg.org/bb3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4717
> 
> I want a declarative solution for simple repetition (e.g. for scientific 
> data forms, for use in high-security institutions where Javascript may 
> be disabled); and the ability to write my own Javascript based solution 
> for anything else. (I can already do the latter, but the former eludes 
> me; most disappointingly considering that this feature was well designed 
> and close to being released).

We took it out because it was just far too complicated a solution to solve 
far too narrow a set of use cases.

However, there is a lot of ongoing work in this area of research, 
especially currently in the public-webapps at w3.org group. I encourage you 
to bring up the suggestion there. Unfortunately, coming up with a 
declarative solution whose cost-to-usefulness ratio is good enough has 
proven over the years to be a rather elusive goal.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'