[wtfdeveloper]

Hi Richard,

First let me admit that we are still giggling after seeing who send su this question! Big fans! :)

That being said... GolemUI is a client-side form runtime, the visibility rules, validation, computed fields, and repeaters all run in JS.

But we would be very interested in hearing from the community and specially ... from you! Do you think we are missing a big use case? Any advice?

[rich_harris]

I have to admit I get very disappointed when I see new form abstractions that don't take this seriously — especially if they make bold claims like 'the new paradigm'!. The whole point of forms is that they're part of HTML. You should not need JavaScript to submit a form, period.

I think about the woman in this story — https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiven... — as an industry, we've lost our way if we don't care enough about people like her to make our apps work reliably. Not everyone has JavaScript: https://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/everyonehasjs.html

Moreover, validation is something that belongs on the server. Client-first approaches to form validation are at best duplicative (because you need to repeat the validation on the server) and at worst dangerous (because it tricks you into thinking that's unnecessary).

I also notice that one of the first forms on your website doesn't adhere to common accessibility guidelines — the email field is marked invalid as soon as you start typing. Ordinarily, you shouldn't validate a field until it has been blurred.

So what I'd like to see from people building form abstractions is a) a full stack approach, b) progressive enhancement, and c) adherence to accessibility guidelines.

FWIW this is how we think about forms in the Svelte project: https://svelte.dev/docs/kit/remote-functions#form

[wtfdeveloper]

Hi Rich,

thank you for taking the time to write this out. This is exactly the kind of harsh but true reality check we were hoping to get by posting here..

With regards to the accessibility point, you're right, marking the email field invalid as you type is not accessible. GolemUI allows you to specify different validation trigger modes via form config: 'blur', 'change', 'submit' and 'eager'. We should change that to 'blur' in our demo.

Regarding server-side vs. client-side validation, we fully agree. Because our library is strictly a frontend tool, we see them as complementary features that can coexist.

With regards to progressive enhancement and the full-stack approach, well, is a much harder architectural hurdle for how our engine currently works, but you have given us some food for thought. We will think about these features.

Seriously, thank you for the feedback!