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

global markup (was Re: XHTML 2.0, death of XLink)

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: global markup (was Re: XHTML 2.0, death of XLink)
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 09:47:29 -0400
• In-reply-to: <4.3.2.7.2.20020821092312.01e6bd90@m...>

Ann Navarro writes:
> Any blended mixed-namespace documents that use "XHTML" but are not 
> conformant to either of the two definitions of a modularized XHTML 
> language, are simply XML borrowing XHTML elements. It's not XHTML.

This may in fact be a tougher set of issues than anything explicitly
stated in the Namespaces in XML Recommendation itself. (Well, hinted,
but not explicit.)

The ability to slap a global URI+localName label on a given piece of
markup seems to give rise to a notion that these bits of markup are
themselves global, and should work the same in different contexts.

This has the potential to make developers even more cranky than the lack
of anything at the end of the URI.  It's made me cranky when I've found,
for instance, that Internet Explorer will treat html:p as an HTML
paragraph, if and only if the html prefix is used, never mind the
namespace declaration.  (Has that changed?)

In a simpler case, like that of XLink, these newly 'global' bits are
designed to be used in a document, but have brittle structures that
can't easily adapt to different situations.  The local situations are
expected to adapt to the global approach, whether or not it fits the
needs of the local situation.

Beyond XLink, which was at least designed with inclusion into other
vocabularies in mind, it's not clear how the interactions between global
expectations and local context will work, but I suspect we're going to
see a long series of small battles over that on a case-by-case basis.

I'm not sure there's a proper DIFFICULTY here, but there's a definite
change of perspective on what a vocabulary is and how to use it -
something I think we'll be sorting out for a long time.


-------------
Simon St.Laurent - SSL is my TLA
http://simonstl.com may be my URI
http://monasticxml.org may be my ascetic URI
urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.6320 is another possibility altogether

• References:
  • Re: XHTML 2.0 and the death of XLink and XPointer?
    • From: Ann Navarro <ann@w...>

• Prev by Date: Re: RDF Interpretation of XML documents (was Re: [xml-d
• Next by Date: Re: namespace reprise
• Previous by thread: Re: XHTML 2.0 and the death of XLink and XPointer?
• Next by thread: RE: XHTML 2.0 and the death of XLink and XPointer?
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread