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

Acronym spaces, namespaces,and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Acronym spaces, namespaces,and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?)
• From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
• Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 09:53:10 -0400
• In-reply-to: <3D5F4EE6.8050806@r...>

8/18/2002 3:38:14 AM, Francis Norton <francis@r...> wrote:


>>I just think the acronym space is too heavily populated for it to be
>>much use outside of very focussed groups to use lots of acronyms.
>>
>That's a fair point in general, but I don't think it applies once you've 
>already associated acronyms to a language via file suffixes and 
>namespace prefixes.

This is a profound little conundrum we find ourselves in!  

The idea of an authority such as Microsoft, or IANA, or "general 
consensus" associating file suffixes to a particular meaning is 
considered a violation of the principles of the Web by the
W3C leadership, and the namespaces spec was designed to to 
prevent such a thing by forcing prefixes to be mapped onto URIs.
(or "URI-syntax globally unique strings", I don't wanna go there).

This discussion makes it sound like this was all for nothing -- there
seems to be a deep presumption that there should be a canonical 
prefix/suffix/acronym for every semantically distinct format.
I don't have strong feelings, myself, but if the W3C orthodoxy 
is simply rolling a rock uphill that rolls back down everytime
someone sits down to rest, why are we bothering with all this
namespace URI voodo, controversy, and permanent education campaign?
At what point would we conclude that it was all a good but 
unworkable idea, and just use IANA or whatever to globally
map short acronyms onto namespace prefixes and file suffixes?

Before you flame me to a crisp, I'm talking about the world as it
exists, contaminated by nearly 20 years of having to deal with
DOS/Windows file extensions, not the world as it could or even 
should be.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Acronym spaces, namespaces, and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?)
    • From: ht@c... (Henry S. Thompson)
  • Re: Acronym spaces, namespaces, and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?)
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
  • Re: Acronym spaces, namespaces,and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?)
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
  • Re: Acronym spaces, namespaces, and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?)
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• References:
  • Re: WXS acronym?
    • From: Francis Norton <francis@r...>

• Prev by Date: Re: linking, 80/20
• Next by Date: Re: linking, 80/20
• Previous by thread: Re: WXS acronym?
• Next by thread: Re: Acronym spaces, namespaces, and authority (was Re: WXS acronym?)
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread