GUIs - ruby on rails, rico

[Christian S]

2005/9/21, Joe Armstrong (AL/EAB) <joe.armstrong@REDACTED>:
>     BTW - why is it called XMLHTTP? - as far as I can see there is absolutly no
> requirement for the server responding to requests with XML - the server can reply with
> any old string that it feels like, and a javascript receptor can do anything
> it feels like with the result.

Because of this method on the object:
  readonly attribute Document                responseXML

[From http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#scripted-http]

It was probably believed that XML would be the best and the only way for message
passing.  There are alternatives such as JSON.

[JSON http://www.crockford.com/JSON/index.html]

I guess nothing stops us from just calling the object HttpRequest...
except the induced
confusion.