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Architectural Forms revival?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Architectural Forms revival?
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 13:27:32 -0600
• In-reply-to: Message from "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...> of "Sat, 17 Aug 2002 15:43:04 EDT." <r01050300-1015-8BC65466B21911D683CE0003937A08C2@[192.168.124.21]>
• Sender: uche.ogbuji@f...

After more thought and discussion, I have warmed more to the architectural 
forms approach to the XHTML/XLink problem recently (though I'm still just as 
happy with "just use XLink").  My main problem with it has always been that it 
involves processing that is not available to XML generically.  This is why I 
say that if I had a time machine, the best solution to this whole matter would 
have been to hypnotize the XML 1.0 folks to add into XML 1.0 the ability to 
re-mal elements and attributes.  This would make namespaces unnecessary, and 
add a *ton* of additional benefits.

Note: I know full well that this is 20/20 hindsight.  There is no way I would 
have come to understand this without a lot of help from XML-DEVers post XML 
1.0.

Anyway, maybe one way around the omission of remapping from XML 1.0 is to add 
another layer.  This looks like what the forthcoming HLink is supposed to do, 
but I don't like that it will be tailored to linking.  If HLink were broken 
into 2 documents: an architecture document that can be used for general XML 
remapping and a linking application of this that solves the XHTML group's 
problems, don't we have a better chance of working out of this mess?

And if the architecture document had one particular use-case in mind: allowing 
a representative class of vocabularies to be mapped to XLink and vice versa, 
would this not go a long way towards allowing all flowers to flourish?  XLink 
partisans would be served, as would XLink haters.

I think this is similar to a point Norm made in the odd branch of this thread 
about infoset augmentation, but I think this cries out for a syntactic 
solution, not a semantic or infoset solution.

One thing, though:  if this sort of thing happens, can we *please* not call it 
"architectural forms".  Whatever the merits of the SGML elite old guard, they 
seem to have had a great deal of trouble coming up with decent names for 
things.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Track chair, XML/Web Services One Boston: http://www.xmlconference.com/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 - 
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think12.html
Keeping pace with James Clark - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/libra
ry/x-jclark.html
Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF - 
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/xml-onlinecourse-bytitle/8A
1EA5A2CF4621C386256BBB006F4CEC

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    • From: Ann Navarro <ann@w...>

• References:
  • linking, 80/20
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

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