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Re: [Fwd: The problems with Xlink for integration langu ages]

• To: Arjun Ray <aray@n...>
• Subject: Re: [Fwd: The problems with Xlink for integration langu ages]
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 07:37:01 -0600
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: Message from Arjun Ray <aray@n...> of "Sun, 15 Sep 2002 06:37:57 -0000." <9aa8ouog1s24s203c5atstt60aso8f178i@4...>
• Sender: uche.ogbuji@f...

> There is another important structural problem with HLink.  It is adopting
> the same conceptual disaster as <OBJECT> - overgeneralization in a single
> element type, a false economy.  It leads to omnium gatherum attribute sets
> with all sorts of interdependencies.  (You'd think people would have
> learned from the INPUT element in HTML!)  It's all very fine to say that
> if the effect attribute is embed and the actuate attribute is onLoad then
> the onSuccess attribute means such-and-such, but without an *exhaustive*
> analysis of the various combinations, the spec is deficient in untangling
> a problem of its own making.  This will result in either a reluctance to
> implement because the bogotic combinations lack definition, or an interop
> problem when the bogotic combinations are read as an invitation to um,
> "embrace and extend".


I agree with the point about object.  I saw a lot of praise for the idea of 
collapsing applet and img into object, but I find the idea a bewildering step 
backwards.  I hear talk that this will reduce the number of tags Web authors 
need to remember.  But I agree with you that remembering all the resulting 
constellation of nuances of object will be a much harder task than remembering 
2 different GIs.  And wait until browser nuances are added to that mix.

As I design vocabularies, a significant difference of semantics in most 
processing of two elements requires a different type names for these elements. 
 By this measure, img and applet undoubtedly deserve separate element types.  
The reductio ad absurdum of the collapse into object is:

<tag role="paragraph">...
<tag role="header">...

Probably a bit too saucy an argument, but I certainly can't see the rational 
argument for the new super-OBJECT tag.

However, I'm trying to follow your extension of this criticism to HLink.  It 
is the hlink element itself that you find an over-stuffed concept, right?  Not 
the elements it describes.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Apache 2.0 API - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-apache/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 - 
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think12.html
Keeping pace with James Clark - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/libra
ry/x-jclark.html

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