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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: XML Schemas: Best Practices
 > From: Thomas B. Passin [mailto:tpassin@h...] > > That's why I advocate that actual namespaces ought to be URIs that are > clearly not URLs. That would discourage people from trying to treat > them as if they were. Especially in examples. I agree, but it doesn't seem to me that the prevailing standards give implementors very good choices in this regard. This whole URI/URL/URN/XML Namespaces issue seems quite murky and confusing to me. It is extremely counter-intuitive and confusing to the layman. We had -- some time ago -- started using URNs based on our domain name for namespace names. However, it appears to me (and I am certainly far from an expert on this stuff) that this approach is not sanctioned by any standard or standards body and has generally fallen out of favor. It appears that the intent of the IETF is that URNs can only be validly assigned by authorized registration authorities, and that process is still not defined. Am I correct in this? If this is the case, then what is the alternative to using URLs? This one single issue is such a huge source of confusion and misunderstanding that I really wish there was better guidance on this. Just try to explain to someone who is not a regular xml-dev reader that "http://whatever..." is just a name and doesn't necessarily point to anything. All of the semantic arguments to this effect may be correct, but they don't contribute to a good general understanding or making XML standards approachable to novices (whose understanding of the web is shaped by their use of web browsers, and to whom a URL is an "Address" or "Location"). Right now, our plan is to abandon our URN approach and move to URLs, following the lead of recent standards from the W3C and industry consortiums. If there is a better way, I would love to hear about it. And I would add that I hate the various schemes I've seen proposed for URIs based on UUIDs or similar schemes. Domain names are something that everyone (pretty much) understands at this point, and I want a naming mechanism that builds upon DNS. Maybe we need a new "name:" URI scheme? 
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