[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Why make namespaces so complicated?
Title: Why make namespaces so complicated? Understand all these things about public IDs, the point
I was trying to make is that at the end of the day both a public ID and a URI
are Just A String. URIs can be resolved by indirection just as well as public
IDs and public IDs can contain essentially meaningless rubbish. Yes, they can
carry some very useful registered information, but (correct me if I'm wrong)
that's only really meaningful if you have an ISO registration code of some kind.
I am no great authority, but by carrying things like Owner, Class, Version and
Language, suddenly they are not really Just A Name anymore, so I can see the
"information" conveyed by a public id also going stale. What do I do when I get
a document with a public ID whose owner has gone out of business? I can't see it
being any more useful to me than a dead URL link.
The
advantage of URLs, as a particular subset of URIs, is that they have the
flexibility to be "self-resolving" as a default behaviour, which is surely quite
handy in some circumstances. They don't have to be used on the internet,
either.
The
big advantage of public IDs is that you simply can't do much with them without a
resolving mechanism (implicit or explicit), which forces people to think about
it a little more. This is surely not a Bad Thing.
John
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