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

RE: Not quite an I-D announcement

• To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Not quite an I-D announcement
• From: "Keith W. Boone" <keith@w...>
• Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:58:02 -0500
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <r01050400-1021-57A148C8EB5811D690FC0003937A08C2@[192.168.124.21]>
• Reply-to: <keith@w...>

Granted:  Your names are clearer, and URI polution is not necessarily a good
thing.

Your argument is that the fundamental pattern is:
MyBeastie(setting1,...)

However, my argument is that the fundamental pattern is:
SetProperty(myBeastie, setting1, value)
	:
	.

As you have already demonstrated by creating three different specs that do
essentially the same thing.  And we can assume that others will do the same.
So now we have 10, 20 or even more different schemes to recall, each with
potentially different rules for use.  All to communicate some
setting/property to the XPointer processor in some way.  I'd much prefer one
way to accomplish the same capability, with rules that I can remember and
which don't change between properties.

The semantics of the properties are perhaps unclear, but if you have 10 or
20 difference schemes to recall, I can make the same argument:  The
semantics of the arguments for each scheme is not regular, and is therefore
unclear.

XML Parsers already use the URI mess to handle property naming, and it seems
that the method works, ugly as it may be.  If there was another way to
handle it without URIs, would you be amenable?

Perhaps, we could agree upon an uber-specification for pragma-like schemes
instead?

	Keith


Engineering is what happens when science and
mathematics meet politics.  Products are what
happens when all three meet reality.

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...]
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 11:06 AM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: RE:  Not quite an I-D announcement


keith@w... (Keith W. Boone) writes:
>pragma() Scheme Syntax:
>  ptrpart  ::=    pragma( feature, value [, required] )
>  feature  ::=    scheme-ns-uri / feature-name
>
>where "scheme-ns-uri" is the URI used to identify the scheme that the
>pragma

Sorry for the complete rejection, but I'm flat out unwilling to continue
the URI-poisoning that's afflicted XML since namespaces came along, and
I don't find that infinitely-extensible pattern a particularly useful
one.

URIs are not an acceptable replacement for human-readable identifiers,
and contribute mightily to the smog of arguments about complexity that
surrounds XML.

Even apart from URI poisoning, I would much rather have three different
schemes whose names are meaningful rather than one scheme whose names
are extensible but whose usage is unclear.  In general, I much prefer
the pattern:

<givenName>Simon</givenName>

to:

<element name="givenName">Simon</element>

From my perspective, the latter is preferable, with or without URIs.

-------------
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

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an
initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org>

The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/

To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription
manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl>

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: Not quite an I-D announcement
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• References:
  • RE: Not quite an I-D announcement
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• Prev by Date: Re: help with inline svg explorer
• Next by Date: RE: Not quite an I-D announcement
• Previous by thread: RE: Not quite an I-D announcement
• Next by thread: RE: Not quite an I-D announcement
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread