Mood:
d'ohNow Playing: "Lifting the Lamp" Old Gaslighter sticks his wick in an explosive mixture (silent movings)
Topic: Off the Wall Speculation
I had a little problem storing this here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=138578&l=ef1fc615be&id=100000645764055
So I figgered I would put it here for safe keeping.
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/XFBML
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facebook and iframe/an asp.net 23-Apr-10 05:36 pm
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/inde...
and what is xfbml...a markup language...
how does this connect to the adobe flash issue?
portuno, et al ...guys, your thoughts?
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 23-Apr-10 05:50 pm
It's a semi-propriatary subset of HTML with special tags and API's for facebook functionality. I wonder when they will start migrating to HTML5. :)
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 23-Apr-10 06:40 pm
That's funny. It doesn't look like HTML. Are you telling us FBML is HTML? Really? So, is it part of HTML5? Or is this another brand that Facebook just decided to hack together, to hell with HTML5?
Looks like XML to me. The guy in the below article thinks it looks like XML also.
As I've said, it's easy to hide hardware. But it's difficult to hide language. There is always going to be some breadcrumb laying around to give the game away.
And, if you're concerned about being pegged for IP violation, perhaps it's best to simply try to keep the mouth shut. But, like I said, breadcrumbs break off right at the outside boundary of the mouth:
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/03/is-facebook-markup-language-fm.html
Is Facebook Markup Language (FBML) HTML, XML or some homemade demon spawn of the two?
By Rick Jelliffe
March 25, 2009
I was browsing at the local Kinokuniya bookstore yesterday, and I flipped through the O'Reilly book on FBML. Now I have no particular interest in FBML, but I was interested in that book steered clear of any issues relating to syntax. No mention of XML in the index, or in the introduction, yet it clearly used namespace prefixes and empty element syntax, so it looked like XML.
I wondered to myself if this represented some new stage of XML's ubiquity, where XML is such a given it does not even need to be stated, let alone explained. But looking through the FBML website has left me uncertain.
The FBML material never seems to say that it is XML: but it frequently talks of HTML: FBML is an evolved subset of HTML. Now there are things that definitely are spoken of as XML: for example it has a "DTD" (actually an XML Schema.) And there is something called XFBRL intended to be put in XHTML.
There are hints such as:
If you're formatting the tag as FBML,
you don't need to use a closing tag.
"<fb:name uid="12345" />"
If you're formatting the tag as XFBML for Facebook Connect,
you must use a closing tag.
"<fb:name uid="12345"></fb:name>"
As near as I can work out, FBML is designed to look like XML but not necessarily be well-formed. But I really don't know, because the documentation is interested in element and attribute names, not syntax. From that, I would guess either that there is some hedging of bets going on about formats, or that there is a single editor application that is being documented, which looks after the syntax.
Does any reader have any pointers to better information?
(By the way, I am quite sympathetic to the idea that XML's Draconian WF handling is excessive for user-oriented web documents, which the title of this piece may not make entirely clear.)
(more at URL)
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 23-Apr-10 06:41 pm
(continued from previous post)
I'm fascinated people think an XML based functional language would depend on a parser and wouldn't know what to do if it found a syntax anomaly.... like a name starting with a number ...
Would it not make sense the underlying XML processor would route data word and content to data processing and route command word and content to command processing?
It's not really hard to figure out unless you're trying to hide the language. Then the view you see doesn't make sense. Like the industry pouring their hearts into XHTML then abandoning it in favor of doing the same thing in HTML... for no real discernible reason than the ball of goo it would take to teach how to process command XML properly.
One would have to have already worked out all that kind of hoorah years ago... like the 521 patent did ten years ago.
So. XFBML.... XML or HTML? Looks like XML actually. But, like mirror says, XML can ONLY be used to describe data. That's what he says and he's supposed to be the expert.
It's just that this Facebook language just doesn't look right, does it? Hmmmm. Why would something not look right?
Why would a real tank seen from far away look like a cardboard tank close up? Odd. Isn't it?
Do you think this oddity could have something to do with Facebook being able to announce this latest ability to interoperate with just about every other social platform? ... and with Microsoft?
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 23-Apr-10 06:42 pm
So Facebook just "made up" a language, huh?
Pretty reckless engineers and managers over there, don't you think?
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By chuck on March 26, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply
This won't validate in an xml parser:
"<fb:18-plus>Oooh la laBarney?</fb:18-plus>"
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Fb:18-plus
So it is a demon spawn.
By Rick Jelliffe in reply to comment from chuck on March 26, 2009 8:23 PM | Reply
Because a name cannot start with a digit!
By Sean Blakey on March 26, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply
Homemade demon spawn from a PHP shop.
libfbml actually uses libraries from firefox to render the "approved" subset of HTML with FBML enhancemens into a safe DOM structure, which is then serialized back into HTML for output to clients.
By len on March 28, 2009 10:34 PM | Reply
Gonna fight well-formedness? HA!
Good idea in one respect: If XML is so strict the user has to know it all to use it, it's only going to be used well by strict users. Any guesses how many people out there know the rules of XML that well? I don't. :-(
By Chuck on March 29, 2009 4:12 AM | Reply
It's not that tough to deal with XML, len. Just use a validating parser to catch problems. There are free ones all over the internet.
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 23-Apr-10 06:45 pm
So if you people are depending on a company to point to their new enhanced and highly efficient language and say "Oh, by the way, the secret sauce has mayo in it." you're going to be plenty ignorant for plenty long. At least until the confidentiality period is over.
If you don't look, you don't study. If you don't study, you don't learn. If you don't learn, you don't move. If you don't move, you get stepped on.
Any ideas?
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 28 minutes ago
Because XML is a markup language like HTML and they can look similar with those ugly tags and all.
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 8 minutes ago
I see. So how are you so certain it's HTML? You usually don't seem disposed to believe marketing writeups but you whole heartedly appear to believe those that make your case.
Like I said, languages are hard to hide because what they look like is what usually sticks out from under the tarp.
And if Facebook has "made up" a language that looks like XML but YOU swear is HTML... OK.
Then it's not HTML5 either, is it?
So Facebook, according to your reading, has gone rogue and decided screw XML and screw HTML5 WE'RE GOING TO WRITE OUR OWN LANGUAGE!!!
Yeah.
That just doesn't sound like reasonable people running a company.
Could it be they want this whole "XML programming/HTML5 rescue of XHTML desires" controversy to be resolved before they come out and tell the world how Facebook came up with this "brand new language" and are now able to interoperate not only with Microsoft but everyone else and yet are not calling it HTML5... or letting the rest of the HTML5 community in on how they're doing the functionality Facebook is doing with markup?
I didn't think HTML5 was that far along. In fact, as far as anyone knows, HTML5 is only right now trying to conquer the video hurdle.
In fact, the standards bodies W3C and WHATWG don't seem to carry any mention of the kind of programmatic markup commands being used in Facebook XFBML.
WTF????
Did something happen we're not seeing? Is somebody hiding something? What do you think?
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 1 minute ago
FBML is a nonstandard form of HTML with proprietary extensions that are Facebook-specific. I don't know why you find this difficult to accept. I gave you a link. There are plenty of HTML variations out there. What's the big deal?
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 6 second(s) ago
This is the big deal.
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Facebook's markup language for executing programmatic functionality seems to look like XML and act like XML and not necessarily HTML.
But you insist it's HTML. Just "non-standard".
So it's not HTML5. It's a new language Facebook made to appear to be HTML... that looks and acts more like XML would.
Just curious.
You know me. I can't let anything rest. If something's sticking out from under a cover, I have to lift the cover and ask what's under there.
You know, if Facebook is moving the ball like this, then the rest of the vendors and users waiting for more HTML5 functionality are screwed. Facebook and Microsoft appear to be sneaking off the field with the ball.
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Re: facebook and iframe/an asp.net 3 minutes ago
Yeah. In fact, the only difference between XML and HTML is the underlying processing of the tags and vocabulary syntax.
So HTML and XML are only separated by semantics.
So HTML has prior art as a programming language... so HTML5 can't claim any novelty in using HTML to build programmatic functional operation.
But XML is well known for ONLY being designed and used to describe data and data structure.
So any first use of XML as a programmatic functional language... is novel; it's an extension of the use cases of the XML family toward something entirely new.
And HTML? Not.
No wonder they took the HTML verbiage out of the Emily patent application. That would not be patentable because HTML has prior art in that area before circa 1999.
But XML does not have prior art in that are before circa 1999.
So, removing the references to HTML from the Emily patent application frees up the language to specifically teach in the XML domain before anyone could do so.
I see. No wonder the industry "abandoned" the use of XML (as mirror claims) for functional programming.
And if this language Facebook has looks like XML but "isn't"... and if this language Facebook has looks like HTML... but isn't HTML5...
...what is it and where did it come from?
More importantly to us, I think: where is it going?
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