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Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames

• To: David Carlisle <davidc@n...>
• Subject: Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames
• From: ht@c... (Henry S. Thompson)
• Date: 13 Feb 2002 22:32:34 +0000
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <200202132154.VAA31311@p...>
• References: <5.1.0.14.2.20020213095321.028aa340@p...><f5b6651qd9g.fsf@c...><200202132154.VAA31311@p...>
• User-agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.4 (Civil Service)

David Carlisle <davidc@n...> writes:

> > 1) I was overly terse above, and at least one other respondent has not
> > unreasonably misunderstood -- I should have said "any sensible use of
> > QNames _in content_ . . ." (as opposed to for element and attribute
> > names).
> 
> But as others have said, Schema types don't help in many common uses of
> Qnames in content (Xpath expressions for example). Is XPath a sensible use?

XPath is a nifty design which precisely identified the sweet spot
with respect to expressiveness, formality and terseness/usability.
The fact that it's a compact representation of a structured object
which _could_ have been verbosely expressed using XML is a fact of
life.

I think it made sense for XPath to use a compact representation, and I
think it made sense to use the QName syntax within it.  (I _don't_
think it made sense to treat unprefixed names as unqualfied, but
that's another story).  So use, XPath is a sensible use.  And no, XML
Schema doesn't immediately give you everything you need to find the
QNames lurking within XPath expressions.  XPath is worth it, despite
this, in my view.

ht
-- 
  Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
          W3C Fellow 1999--2001, part-time member of W3C Team
     2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
	    Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@c...
		     URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames
    • From: Norman Walsh <ndw@n...>
  • Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames
    • From: David Carlisle <davidc@n...>

• References:
  • Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
  • Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames
    • From: ht@c... (Henry S. Thompson)
  • Re: Errors in Kendall Clark's xml.com article on QNames
    • From: David Carlisle <davidc@n...>

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