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Re: XML Base (RE: Article: Keeping pace with James

• To: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Subject: Re: XML Base (RE: Article: Keeping pace with James Clark)
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 12:18:14 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <E17VDoO-0001VC-00@m...>

Uche Ogbuji wrote:
> I think it's ridiculously harsh to characterize XML:Base as useful
> only for people who are too lazy to type URIs.

And here I thought I was being reasonably restrained.

> XML Base is a handy
> tool for solving a particular class of problems involving
> interpretation of relative URIs in content.

It's a handy tool for a particular class of problems that really needs
to be solved at the application level, not at the XML level.

> One possible solution for this is to eliminate the allowance of
> relative URIs in content.  Not that I agree with this, but as long as
> relative URIs are allowed in content, XML Base will be useful for
> solving real problems that have nothing to do with laziness.

XML Base in its current form does not appear to do that.  Instead, it
provides a foundation that other applications can use to figure things
out, without considering things like the odd possibility that different
applications (RDF, XLink, etc.) might in fact find it useful to have
different base URIs.

> > On (b), I think the answer is quite plainly NO. XML Base is never
> > necessary.  You can always type out URIs, and you can even do a
> > search-and-replace if necessary.
> 
> Well lots of things in XML are never necessary.  How about 
> (non-character-reference) entities?  How about comments?  processing 
> instructions?  I don't argue getting rid of these (and the many other 
> such 
> things I didn't mention) myself.

Sure thing.  I'm just saying that there is no compelling WE MUST HAVE
XML BASE IN THE CORE OF XML argument.

> Yes.  And some applications are: RDF, XSLT and XLink.  I don't see
> the problem with this.

I see little reason to believe that mixtures of those applications will
necessarily find a common XML Base useful.  This kind of
semantically-impinging information seems like something that should be
as close to the application as possible, not thrown haphazardly into the
syntax specs.  Imitating the HTML BASE element never seemed that strong
an idea to me.
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com

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  • Re: XML Base (RE: Article: Keeping pace with James Clark)
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>

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