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----- Original Message ----- From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...> To: "'Nicolas Lehuen'" <nicolas.lehuen@u...>; "'Jeff Lowery'" <jlowery@s...> Cc: <xml-dev@l...> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 10:16 PM Subject: RE: There is a meaning, but it's not in the data alone > Again, what is the difference in an arch form and a > pile 'o attributes on the root? > > len Maybe the pile of attributes, though crappy, can give more meta-data about an element than the architectural form ? Unless, of course, you have a standard way to bind an architecture and its architectural form to other types of meta-data than "just" DTDs. That would be great. That's why we want to be able to bind document types to meta-data resource directories. Beginner's question : what is the difference between an architecture and a namespace ? Is it that architectures have a meaning (i.e. meta-DTDs and possibility to write code that process the AF following these meta-DTDs) and allow renaming, whereas namespaces are just sets of names ? Is all the discussion about namespaces due to the fact that for many, namespaces should have the same meaning as architectures (i.e. contain meta-schemas and allow element and attribute renaming) ? Disclaimer : I just read David Megginson's documentation of XAF [1], which implements a subset of AFs for XML. I'll try to read [2] in the future, especially for the meta-DTD part, but right now my brains just melt at the idea of reading a document which calls its sections 'subclauses'. Apparently those people like giving complex names to trivial concepts :P. Yes, I know, Architectural Forms vs namespaces have already been debated on this list, before namespaces where adopted, as early as in 1997 [3]. So now that namespaces are there, what can we learn from AF ? I begin to understand your question "Why is this debate still being held every year?". It seems that everything has already been said and done, so why should you care ? Well, I may have an answer that may give you some hope : it's because some of us are here to learn, and you can teach us :) ! [1] http://www.megginson.com/XAF/ [2] http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/docs/n1920/html/clause-A.1.html [3] http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/199705/msg00076.html Regards, Nicolas
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