Comments on: XBL 2: The component model is coming to WebKit and Gecko

By: Gordon

Gordon — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:52:41 +0000

Awesome. Finally a way to abstract interface from content.

By: spyke

spyke — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:22:53 +0000

Based on XML? No thanks.

By: genericallyloud

genericallyloud — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:39:03 +0000

A good component model is really a requirement before the open web technologies can assert themselves as a capable application platform. Many javascript frameworks have tried to fill the gap, and have taken us pretty far, but built in solution would not have the same limitations. Anyone who looks at this and asks “yeah, but what about performance” is missing two pretty obvious details.
1) We are already doing it with javascript. I really doubt this is going to be slower.
2) XBL (not XBL2) is used natively in firefox with XUL. It was built FOR XUL. That doesn’t necessarily mean blinding speeds, but if it works for them, its probably good enough (performance wise).

However, while I do think it would be great to have, because something is better than nothing, I don’t really find it the paragon of elegance. The syntax seems pretty kludgy, and while it does allow the use of javascript, it doesn’t integrate very well. I think this is a sore spot for open web technologies in general. Graceful degradation is very nice, but at some point, to reach the next level of application development, you need to be able to unify the parts. I want components that can really unite my html/css visuals to a javascript object with methods. I don’t think adobe got it perfect, but the Flex component model is actually pretty nice.

In the end, whatever happens, I think it’ll be a good thing, and if nothing else, existing js libs can wrap it with nicer syntax.

By: caston

caston — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:08:09 +0000

>That in turn means that we will have an interesting component model for the first time, and who knows where that could lead us!

Component model has been present in “browsers” since ever – take HTC in IE, or XBL (1.0) in Gecko.

By: caston

caston — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:01:44 +0000

There is a cross-browser implementation of XBL 2.0 technology with all technological dependencies: http://code.google.com/p/xbl/
It works fine on all browsers (with a principal limitation of rendering shadow content into the hosting page, however you won’t run into the trouble caused by that in practice).
Check it out for your inspiration on the upcoming native support.

By: jbondc

jbondc — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:07:01 +0000

“Wouldnâ€™t it be nice” sure. But in my opinion it solves the mess with another mess.

As far as “ability to associate elements in a document with script, event handlers, CSS, and more complex content models”, sure but it introduces much more complexity and abstraction.

For me it gets an “interesting” note, more use cases and a better description of the problem and how XBL 2 solves that problem would help.

A start is here but I’m not convinced of the added value not to mention processing impact on browsers
http://www.w3.org/TR/xbl-primer/

By: codedread

codedread — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:22:07 +0000

Very nice catch, Dion! Looks like the XBL2 thing is in a WebKit branch, but hopefully soon that will make it to the regular nightlies.

By: Unfocused

Unfocused — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:13:15 +0000

Wow, great news – XBL is amazingly powerful. Of course, Gecko’s (Firefox) XBL implementation has a few differences from XBL 2.0 – good to know that’s being worked on too.

And I just happen to be messing around with XBL code at the moment, too.