On Jan 20, 2005, at 9:22 PM, Douglas Livingstone wrote:

> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:08:36 +0900, Francis Hwang <sera / fhwang.net> 
> wrote:
>> Yeah, it's a tough call,
>
> Note that it isn't a case of "can't do", but more of "takes time to
> do". If you want to have a "normal" text interface, and a JS "rich"
> one, it means you have to code everything twice. You need to have JS
> which can manipulate HTML on the client side, plus Ruby on the server
> side to generate exactly the same HTML!
>

Right, I think that avoiding this trouble is part of why some people 
are trying to figure out ways to decouple a form's data & behaviors 
from their specific implementations in HTML, JavaScript, etc ... so in 
theory a User-Agent could tweak a form on the fly for a specific sort 
of user (blind, novice, etc.) if things were specified right. XForms is 
one example of this, though as to when they'll get off the ground is 
anybody's guess. Just getting everyone behind one syndication standard 
is tough enough ...

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/