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Re: XML ... simple building blocks, simple assembly mechanisms

• To: Jeff Rafter <lists@j...>
• Subject: Re: XML ... simple building blocks, simple assembly mechanisms, endless complexity
• From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@b...>
• Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 22:08:49 -0400
• Cc: "Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...>, xml-dev@l...
• Organization: Booz Allen Hamilton
• References: <004a01c457b5$47332dd0$19395381@M...> <00d701c457cd$a5b7e0e0$6403a8c0@ARIMATHEA>

I think this analogy is more like chameleon schemas, in which there is
namespace coercion (here there would be "color coercion"). Of course,
you could have a rule that causes the Blue blocks, when attached to Red
blocks, to retain their color. This would be the equivalent to
disallowing use of no-target-namespace schemas in your schema design
rules.

Back to the original question of attributes and namespaces: I believe
attributes are equivalent to the color, texture, size, etc. of the
blocks, and namespaces could be equivalent to the manufacturer (let's
suppose they are not all Legos). Each block would have some type of
label (perhaps a faint indentation in the wood) that signifies the
manufacturer - roughly equivalent to the role that a namespace prefix
plays (realizing that namespace prefixes are just syntactic sugar and
are not passed to the Infoset...won't even go there ;)

Kind Regards,
Joe Chiusano
Booz | Allen | Hamilton
Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World

Jeff Rafter wrote:
> 
> > Is a namespace a "building block"?  Or, is a namespace simply more
> metadata
> > on a tag - analogous to coloring a Lego building block to distinguish it
> > from others?
> 
> I thought I agreed with this until I thought about the complexity of
> namespaces. To carry the analogy to the end you would have to support
> default namespaces. Essentially, this would be equivalent to building two
> separate structures out of Legos, a Red one and a Blue one, then by
> attaching Red one to the Blue one all of the Blue blocks would suddenly
> change to Red. I don't know if there is an equivalent to namespaces in the
> Lego Metaphor. Though, I would be very interested to see someone try to map
> Joe English's namespace breakdown to analogous Lego constructions. :-)
> 
> All the best,
> Jeff Rafter
> 
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-- 
Kind Regards,
Joseph Chiusano
Associate
Booz | Allen | Hamilton

• References:
  • RE: XML ... simple building blocks, simple assembly mechanisms, endless complexity
    • From: "Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...>
  • Re: XML ... simple building blocks, simple assembly mechanisms, endless complexity
    • From: "Jeff Rafter" <lists@j...>

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