[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Namespace and URIs

• To: "Paul Prescod" <paul@p...>
• Subject: Re: Namespace and URIs
• From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@a...>
• Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 22:51:26 -0500
• Cc: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>,"XML DEV" <xml-dev@l...>
• References: <B892A842.E7FE%patrick.stickler@n...> <3C6D4AA4.D436E345@p...> <1013801882.948.34.camel@l...> <3C6E868B.7C4C4B79@p...> <1013882947.949.71.camel@l...> <3C703844.1C606413@p...> <003001c1b814$9ea73720$0301a8c0@n...> <3C70552C.E9534C9A@p...>

Paul Prescod wrote:
> Jonathan Borden wrote:
...
> >
> > In the case of an XML Namespace:
> >
> > <nsURI, term*>
>
> It's more complicated than that because of this:
>
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#Philosophy

Not really, besides that is non-normative.
...
>
> If namespace URIs are to be useful to machines then they should be
> pointers to the machine-readable information necessary to interpret what
> it means for one namespace to occur within another. Considering the
> range of namespace (ab)uses available today, from SOAP to XSLT to RDDL,
> I can't imagine what that resource would look like.

Exactly the point. Since there is no one single use for a namespace, it is
best to allow multiple referenced resources, e,g. various schemas, XSLTs,
code modules etc. Since you can't imagine what a resource would look like,
we provide the capability of defining that, and labelling the definition by
nature and purpose.

This suggests to me
> that it is safest to view namespaces as "just punctuation" and not try
> to do software dispatching on them without out-of-band knowledge that
> this actually works for the particular process you are trying to execute
> and the particular document you are working with.
>

"Just punctuation" is not very interesting, nor that useful. It would be a
real shame if we were to have spent all these years arguing over nothing. I
say treat namespace names like the URIs that they are.

Jonathan

• References:
  • Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
    • From: Patrick Stickler <patrick.stickler@n...>
  • Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
  • Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Re: URIs are simply names was: Re: "Abstract"URIs
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
  • standardization (was Re: URIs are simply names)
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Namespace and URIs
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
  • Re: Namespace and URIs
    • From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@a...>
  • Re: Namespace and URIs
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>

• Prev by Date: Re: Re: Why REST was Re: URIs are simply names
• Next by Date: RE: Re: Why REST was Re: URIs are simply names
• Previous by thread: Re: Namespace and URIs
• Next by thread: Crossposting: was Namespaces and URIs
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread