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

RE: 14 Theses around "Namespace Documents"

• To: 'Tim Bray' <tbray@t...>, XML DEV <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: 14 Theses around "Namespace Documents"
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:37:26 -0600

'11. Anyone should be able to write software to process a Web resource."

Anyone?  Access rights, schema knowledge, all that comes to mind.   That said, I'd say  
anyone should be able to obtain the information required to process a web resource 
if they have rights to that information.  Otherwise, web services plainly don't work 
as a business environment.  But yes, anyone gets to ask.

"A key differentiating factor between the Web and most information systems that came before it is that anyone can, and many people do, write software to process data designed and produced by someone else.

I'm not convinced the argument offered supports the generality of the assertion. 

"The Web" is no different than any export/import system.  Syntax alone does not infer semantic 
coherence, so the same set of problems any db implementor has apply to the web, and mostly, the 
same solutions.  The Web is just email for bots.   This is not a differentiator.  What makes the 
Internet different is the scale of access.  Otherwise, ODBC has more advantages for blind reuse,

"An advantage of descriptive markup - to my mind, the key advantage - is that it allows people to put data to use in ways not intended or envisioned by its creator."

I agree with the assertion about markup.  This is a quality of markup, not "the web" whatever 
that is.  Namespaces don't make this possible.  They just prevent name collisions if one 
is pig-headed enough to create compound documents and exchange them blindly.   It is the 
perceived to exchange blindly that argues for namespace resolvability.  I'm not convinced 
we do that often and yet the whole set of theses collapses if we don't do that.  Decoupling 
instance and declaration (why XML beats SGML) sounds good, works OK, but why are so many 
people working so hard to either keep DTDs or invent replacements? 

A philosophy of an architecture should reflect the goal of the architecture.  Maybe that 
is what 11 states, the goal, but not just anyone can write software and all resources 
are not equal.  Otherwise, namespace resolution wouldn't be necessary.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@t...]

I have just posted some arguments about namespaces and
namespace documents as a contribution to TAG debate - I
suspect many here will be interested.  See

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Feb/0093.html

• Prev by Date: Re: Re: Why REST
• Next by Date: RE: 14 Theses around "Namespace Documents"
• Previous by thread: RE: 14 Theses around "Namespace Documents"
• Next by thread: RE: 14 Theses around "Namespace Documents"
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread