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HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

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Re: HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

#51

Post by talmand »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #22
_wmd wrote: post #10

I'm not necessarily opposed to something along these lines, except that it's basically already been tried: XSLT was essentially the inverse of this, where data endpoints were annotated with some static rendering descriptors. To me the XSLT approach seems cleaner, in that the URLs the browser is visiting are for the raw data itself, the URL scheme between machine and human is identical, and so on. XSLT also encouraged…

Yep. I used to love XSLT -- working in it finally forced me to understand recursion at, like, a deep cellular level -- but the whole time I was using it I knew it was a doomed language (because most people don't want to have to understand recursion at a deep cellular level just to be able to lay out a damn web page.)

I used to despise XSLT. Actually, I still do. As a front-end developer I found it absolutely horrid to work with. I jumped ship on that as soon as possible.

But if you like it, that's cool.

Re: HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

#52

Post by nashashmi »

_wmd wrote: post #10

I'm not necessarily opposed to something along these lines, except that it's basically already been tried: XSLT was essentially the inverse of this, where data endpoints were annotated with some static rendering descriptors. To me the XSLT approach seems cleaner, in that the URLs the browser is visiting are for the raw data itself, the URL scheme between machine and human is identical, and so on. XSLT also encouraged…

> XSLT has died a gentle death

Maybe it is not because that XSLT is complex, but because XML has failed to become a language for the web. JSON has come to be the preferred choice.

Which brings me to JSON and complexity: The complexity of retrieving data has been paved over multiple times using libraries. This has encouraged people to skip XML and go directly to JSON. If retrieval of XML data, or better yet JSON data, were to become simpler, I think more people would structure their webpages to use these types of resources. In the end, it would be a victory for both open Web and open applications.

And that brings me to my last point: Dynamic elements. This web ain't succeeding without variable based dynamics. These pathways for dynamic behaviors have to be baked into browsers from the start. Then let JS abuse that dynamic just like JQuery abuses attributes, styles, and content.

Re: HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

#53

Post by jkoudys »

This proposal is trying to take a common web design pattern, MVC, and make it part of the official spec. HTML is a _markup language_, it's ridiculous to use it as anything but a semantic language.

Here's my HTML6 proposal: There’s a standard design pattern emerging via cascading style sheets, where content is styled directly via CSS. Everyone’s into it because the layout looks so much nicer.

Since this is so common now, can we implement this directly in the browsers via HTML so users can directly style their content without CSS? I propose adding a tag, so people can style their fonts, a tag so things can blink, and a fun tag so content can scroll.

Re: HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

#54

Post by phkahler »

I always thought XSLT has some SQL-like capabilities and I have always been angry that one can't simply pass a parameter to the interpreter via link. The idea being that menus could become active just by having links specify an item selected when they are clicked on and reload the same page. It's one little tiny thing (passing the parameter) that could make dynamic static pages.

Re: HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

#57

Post by [deleted] »

talmand wrote: post #51
outsidetheparty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I used to love XSLT -- working in it finally forced me to understand recursion at, like, a deep cellular level -- but the whole time I was using it I knew it was a doomed language (because most people don't want to have to understand recursion at a deep cellular level just to be able to lay out a damn web page.)

I used to despise XSLT. Actually, I still do. As a front-end developer I found it absolutely horrid to work with. I jumped ship on that as soon as possible. But if you like it, that's cool.

[deleted]

Re: HTML6 proposal for single-page apps without JavaScript

#60

Post by smt88 »

daemonk wrote: post #49
smt88 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever used React? What do you think about the React/Flux methods of mixing template and logic?

Good point. I do use react and I find jsx to be very convenient. I guess the question is: would I want to write something similar to JSX and have the browser be able to interpret that natively. I honestly don't know.

Yeah, I'm ambivalent myself.

The main problem with W3 standards is that they assumed they knew what we'd want to do with them. No one predicted HTML would become the UI layer for complex replacements for desktop applications, so for a long time, it sucked at that job.

Now they're trying to rectify those mistakes, but I think they might be going too far in the other direction.

Instead, web standards need to be as simple, low-level, and generic as possible. The more HTML approaches an opinionated UI framework, the worse off we all are (in my opinion).

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