[Cmacc] technical design decisions

[Christopher Clark]

Some questions on the CommonAccord technical design:

*API*

Would you all consider moving to an API that returns only the document
texts, as opposed to HTML documents with the legal text in it somewhere?
That would allow other online services to consume the CommonAccord API.

*On Moving to Javascript*

Are there any specific benefits you are looking for by moving the parsing
client-side? I actually can't think of any; you wouldn't be able to get rid
of the server, because the server would still have to store all the
templates. And by moving everything client-side, you lose the possibilities
of:

   - providing an API that other online services could use
   - doing any cool post-processing on the document (like creating an ODF,
   DOC, PDF, applying formatting, etc)

Also, if parsing were client-side, the parsing code would likely mingle
with the UI code, which would make it harder to create new UIs for
displaying/rendering the legal texts. Since CommonAccord is mostly about
legal content and not about any specific UI, there's a good argument for
focusing on how to offer the content in the most agnostic way without tying
it to a specific UI which you have created.

Also, say two people want the same contract. Shouldn't it be created once
on the server and then sent to both people? If documents can only be
created in the browser, the likely use case would be that one person
creates the contract in his/her browser and then personally sends the
document to relevant parties.

*On LegalXML (or really any XML format)*
Using an XML format as the output (like LegalXML) might be something to
discuss:

   - XML documents can be translated into other XML formats using XSLT.
   Since the Open Document Format (what OpenOffice and LibreOffice use) is an
   XML format, I suppose you could potentially convert LegalXML (or whatever)
   into ODF. (On a side note, Google Docs just added support for opening ODF
   documents).
   - Using a well-defined output format lets other people with bright ideas
   build off your work more easily
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