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Best Practice = Vanilla XML? (was A multi-step approach on defining obje

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• Subject: Best Practice = Vanilla XML? (was A multi-step approach on defining object-orientednatureof DOM)
• From: "Jeff Rafter" <jeffrafter@d...>
• Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 00:57:38 -0500
• References: <200208212113.RAA13444@m...> <200208220017.g7M0HM331421@d...>

Joe English wrote:
> (Actually, I would go one step further and argue that
> any XML vocabulary which is not designed to be mixed
> with elements from other vocabularies ought not to use
> namespaces at all.  There are valid arguments against
> this position, of course.)

I would take this a step further and say that any vocabulary that has been
designed to be mixed outlines the use of similar/diverse names in contexts
throughout the document in its documentaion/ application/ or schema. In that
case is there a need to distinguish the names within the document (the
identity is expressed at application level through context). If there is no
need to distinguish the names then there is NO need for namespaces.

For example, I can't reliably mix my own vocabulary into XHTML because I
can't validate it or it isn't supported well. Those that are (SVG/MathML)
have been spec'ed and I can rely on that. Those that haven't (i.e.
FurnitureML) just use CSS anyway and that doesn't use namespaces. In the
XHTML case the only use case I can think of that *requires* namespaces would
be severs that strip larger XHTML documents down to deliver to small
devices. Even in these cases the software doing the profiling would be wise
to rely on DTD mappings.

So that's it... the option is to create a new best practice: Don't use
namespaces, just explain how your document will mix with other vocabularies.
Sounds stifling. Everyone in favor step over to this side of the line.

Jeff Rafter
Defined Systems
http://www.defined.net
XML Development and Developer Web Hosting

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