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RE: Begging the Question

• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• To: "'xml-dev@l...'" <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 20:29:03 -0500

At 05:10 PM 12/29/00 -0800, Andrew Layman wrote:
>I'm going to read this very literally. This statement would mean that "the
>namespaces spec says X" is false for all X, in other words, the spec does
>not say anything at all.
>
>That conflates the (true) recognition that the namespaces specification has
>suffered much misunderstanding with the (false) idea that it has no meaning
>whatsoever.  

No, you're not reading my statement ('it might be reasonable at this point
to put "namespaces mean X because the namespaces spec says so" into the
same category as "one must keep servants because all respectable people do
so."') literally.

I'm saying that making claims based on 'the spec says X' says nothing to
support those claims in any context beyond discussions of the
specification's text.

The spec does say something - it does exist.

Unfortunately, it serves far more as a point of contention than a point of
authority.  As one of its authors, I expect you'd disagree with that, but
on flat logic, you've missed my point.

The spec's problems do not lie in mere misunderstandings.  They lie in the
specification itself and what it attempts to do - and I'd suggest they also
lie in similar problems inherited from RFC 2396.


Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

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