[OpenAjaxIDE] IDE Issue 7: Datatypes (plus other issues)

Wed Dec 19 16:54:19 PST 2007

Hi Bertrand,
Being self-analytic, I would guess that my recommendation of defining more
built-in types comes from my long career on the visual tooling side (having
been a manager at one time or another at nearly every Adobe product, at
least those that existed before the Macromedia acquisition). As a result, I
tried to come up with a list of datatypes that lent themselves to special
data entry user interface (e.g., a calendar widget to pick a date).
However, in recognition of the difficulty to require everyone to implement
special editors for a long list of built-in datatypes, I came up with the
fallback strategy where each "advanced" datatype had a fallback in one of
the core JavaScript types, usually "string". Anyway, that's what I was
thinking, but I'm not stuck on it. I just wanted to push the discussion
forward by attempting to come up with a reasonable starting point for
discussion. I look forward to the phone call tomorrow.

Jon

             Bertrand Le Roy                                               
             <Bertrand.Le.Roy@                                             
             microsoft.com>                                             To 
                                       Jon Ferraiolo/Menlo Park/IBM at IBMUS, 
             12/19/2007 02:56          "ide at openajax.org"                  
             PM                        <ide at openajax.org>                  
                                                                        cc 

                                                                   Subject 
                                       RE: [OpenAjaxIDE] IDE Issue 7:      
                                       Datatypes (plus other issues)       

One immediate remark I have when reading this (issue 7) is that any set of
complex type that you choose will be arbitrary and will always be different
from specific implementations.
So I think instead of including specific complex types into the specs, we
should limit ourselves to the built-in JavaScript types, plus enumerations,
plus maybe CSS stuff like color and length, plus validation constraints,
but only provide support for complex types through an extensibility
mechanism.

Bertrand

From: ide-bounces at openajax.org [mailto:ide-bounces at openajax.org] On Behalf
Of Jon Ferraiolo
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 11:07 AM
To: ide at openajax.org
Subject: [OpenAjaxIDE] IDE Issue 7: Datatypes (plus other issues)

Hi everyone,
Last week I promised to do my best to pull together a write-up about the
Datatypes issues. After reviewing previous discussion, doing some research,
and thinking about things, I have pulled together an extensive write-up and
a complete set of recommendations. You can find all of this at:

* http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_7 (Datatypes)

I believe that this is the primary topic for tomorrow's phone call.

I have also done various things with other existing issues. Here are some
highlights:

* IDE Issue 1: Toolkit identification, configuration, loading, and
initialization
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_1)
I updated the proposed recommendation to reflect discussion at last week's
phone call. In particular, I renamed the 'head' attribute to
'includeAssetReference' and I added a 'sandbox' attribute to indicate
whether the widget can be intermixed within existing content (e.g., use a
DIV) or should be isolated (e.g., use an IFRAME).

* IDE Issue 3: Widget metadata localization
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_3)
I added a paragraph at the end raising the sub-issue about where tools can
find the localization files.

* IDE Issue 6: Hooks for custom design-time user interface
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_6)
Previously, this wiki page had no content. There is now a complete write-up
along with a proposed recommendation.

Finally, I have added some new issues writeups:

* IDE Issue 8: Complex datatypes
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_8)

* IDE Issue 9: Complex parameter lists (e.g., varargs)
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_9)

* IDE Issue 10: returnType or returnTypes (e.g., varargs)
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_10)

* IDE Issue 11: Should our metadata formats be expressible as JSON?
(http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issue_11)

I do not have a proposal yet for Issue 11. I have to do more research
first.

Note that there is an index page to the list of current issues at:

* http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/IDE_Issues

I will talk to some of you tomorrow. For everyone else, Happy Holidays!

Jon

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