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

Re: NAMESPACES: expressing commonality or distinction

• From: Ann Navarro <ann@w...>
• To: "James Tauber" <jtauber@j...>, "XML-Dev Mailing list" <xml-dev@i...>
• Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 10:11:54 -0400

At 10:12 AM 8/30/99 +0800, James Tauber wrote:

>However, as David Megginson and Tim Bray have argued, capturing the
>commonality between, say, "p" in each DTD is not just valuable, but pretty
>much vital.

I think that the distinctions are just as vital, from the global
perspective, not just from an application developer perspective. 

>It seems to me that this is an argument to expand the role of namespaces (to
>express commonality, not just distinction) on grounds of practicality.
>
>I imagine that most people would agree that:
>
>1. There is a difference between strict:p and transitional:p
>2. The difference is small and most applications will not care about it
>3. Most applications *will* care about the commonality

If the qualifier were "many", rather than "most', I indeed agree (though
that's splitting hairs). 


>Here are a couple of possibilities:
>
>1. PREFIX MATCHING ON NAMESPACE URIs
>
>Use URIs to develop a hierarchy of namespaces and then allow
>underspecification for matching via prefixes.
>
>Use the Namespace URIs:
>
>http://www.w3.org/HTML/Strict/1.0
>http://www.w3.org/HTML/Transitional/1.0
>
>and allow applications to match
>
>http://www.w3.org/HTML


>PRO: uses existing namespace mechanism
>CON: would require modification to XPath, etc.

I like it -- XPath isn't completely done yet (though we are in last call,
so it is a bit late)


>2. A COMMON ATTRIBUTE THAT CAN BE MATCHED
>
>Have all elements in all three DTDs take a FIXED attribute. For example:
>
>    w3c:vocab="HTML" xmlns:w3c="http://www.w3.org/"

>PRO: doesn't require modification of XPath, etc.
>CON: invents new mechanism

I think it's realistic that we may indeed need a new mechanism. 

Either one seems a viable option to me. 

Ann


---

Author of Effective Web Design: Master the Essentials
Coming in September --- Mastering XML

Founder, WebGeek Communications            http://www.webgeek.com
Vice President-Finance, HTML Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org
Director, HWG Online Education             http://www.hwg.org/services/classes





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:
  • why distinctions within XHTML?
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• References:
  • NAMESPACES: expressing commonality or distinction
    • From: "James Tauber" <jtauber@j...>

• Prev by Date: Re: ATTN: Please comment on XHTML (before it's too late)
• Next by Date: Re: ATTN: Please comment on XHTML (before it's too late)
• Previous by thread: NAMESPACES: expressing commonality or distinction
• Next by thread: why distinctions within XHTML?
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread