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RE: A philosophical question?

• From: Kay Michael <Michael.Kay@i...>
• To: "'Linda Grimaldi'" <grimlinda@e...>, xml-dev@x...
• Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 18:40:06 +0100

> In the XPath spec, the following statement is
> made in the Data Model (section 5.3, for example, also 5.4 
> re: namespace nodes) "... the element is the parent of each of these 
> attribute nodes; however, an attribute node is not a child of its parent
element."
> 
> I try not to be too obsessed by symmetry, but I find this 
> statement somewhat perplexing.  Any insights? 

The only reason people find this disquieting is that the names of the
relationships are taken from a biological analogy which has been stretched
too far. If different names had been chosen, e.g. has-owner and has-content,
there would be no perplexity.

No-one seems to worry that nodes have only one parent but people have two,
it all depends on familiarity.

Mike Kay

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