[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Fw: Namespaces

• From: James Clark <jjc@j...>
• To: "XML Developers' List" <xml-dev@i...>
• Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 12:29:16 +0700

Mark Birbeck wrote:

> The XML 1.0 or
> parser 'view' of the data looks at elements and attributes, their values
> and their relationships to each other. The 'post-parser' view is of the
> same information but from the perspective of which namespace an element
> or attribute belongs to.

I would say that the difference between the view that the parser gives
you and the view that the post-parser (namespace processor) gives you is
simply that, in the post-parser view, element and attribute names can be
qualified by a URI. There is no need to make it any more complex than
that.

All this stuff about namespaces is just unnecessary, confusing
complexity that invites the over-analysis that is so prevalent in this
forum.  If the spec was called something like "XML Universal Names" and
never mentioned the word "namespace" and didn't include Appendix A
(which thankfully is not normative), absolutely no functionality would
have been lost and I think there would have been far less confusion.

I've updated my note

 http://www.jclark.com/xml/xmlns.htm

to try to address some of the comments I've received.

James


xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i...
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Fw: Namespaces
    • From: james anderson <James.Anderson@m...>

• References:
  • RE: Fw: Namespaces
    • From: Mark Birbeck <Mark.Birbeck@i...>

• Prev by Date: Re: Restricted Namespaces for XML
• Next by Date: Re: Storing Lots of Fiddly Bits (was Re: What is XML for?)
• Previous by thread: RE: Fw: Namespaces
• Next by thread: Re: Fw: Namespaces
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread