[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: re: IDs and databases (Was: determining ID-ness in XML)
True story. The IDE/AS SGML hypertext system originally used PIs for link targets. Because as an SGMLer at that time, I knew we would get beat up for using PIs, I convinced the developers to switch to attributes instead, and we even adopted the weakest nameloc hytime conventions we could. This made it over into IADS, the USAMICOM version. We were pleased. Then the SGML Way people began to beat the daylights out of us for requiring any kind of out of band information in the content because any DTD for IADS or IDE/AS had to support it. We also required frame elements and made those optional, again, to stay out of the DTD. Then we got beat up for not requiring a DTD (it was a well-formed system in the pre-XML days). Sigh.... no win... So the politics of markup can be ugly and religious. The PI will work. The xml:id will work. Rename it as xml:target or something like that, and it works better (no confusion). But if we put it in the xml namespace, I think we owe it to everyone to be very clear about the requirement, the semantics, the expectation of support, and so forth, because the DTD writers can adapt and will but the processor developer needs very clear instructions. It is the requirement and the precise doctrinal decisions that make me pause. We can add PIs as conventions until the troops come home. No problem. But I don't think that is what the proposers of this are after and until I see the whole proposal, I can't be comfortable with a fundamental expansion of the xml namespace. As for putting PIs to sleep, don't kill a useful barnyard cat. The rats may come back. Preserve options. len (paranoidly yours) -----Original Message----- From: Champion, Mike [mailto:Mike.Champion@S...] Likewise, untold generations of applications developers would put their metadata (e.g., information used to generate some UI component on the fly) in a document as PI pseudo-attributes. I can kinda sorta see how this could be done with namespaces, but it's exactly what PIs were invented to do. (Somebody please convince me otherwise; I would like to see PIs put to sleep as much as anyone!).
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