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Re: SkunkLink: a skunkworks XML linking proposal

• To: Michael Kay <michael.h.kay@n...>
• Subject: Re: SkunkLink: a skunkworks XML linking proposal
• From: Adam Turoff <ziggy@p...>
• Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:14:52 -0500
• Cc: "'Micah Dubinko'" <MDubinko@c...>, xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <001201c2b64c$0af9ada0$6601a8c0@pcukmka>
• References: <BD2DBD26EE0BAA48B1A425C7BE7923002D00E3@c...> <001201c2b64c$0af9ada0$6601a8c0@pcukmka>
• User-agent: Mutt/1.4i

On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 12:54:54PM -0000, Michael Kay wrote:
> An example of a relationship between two documents is:
> 
> <xsl:include href="library.xsl"/>
> 
> This has semantic meaning defined by the XSLT specification. It has no
> implied user interface behavior suggesting what should happen when
> people view stylesheets on-screen.

Yes.  The tag is necessary to understand the context of the link.
That's why XSLT has both <xsl:import/> and <xsl:include/>.

I think you're getting a little too hung up on the idea that a
SkunkLink xml:href necessarily has a user interface behavior.
Google's search bots have no user interface in the conventional
sense, yet <a href=""/> style hyperlinks have a well defined behavior
within their bots.  Simple hyperlinks as specified by xml:href do
not have an implied UI behavior; they have an implied *relationship*.

And <xsl:include/> is a perfect example why SkunkLink is necessary.
The kind of linking performed by <xsl:include/> and <xsl:import/>
are more similar to embedding, like xml:src and <img src=""/>.  Yet the
link attribute is called "href", even though the behavior is most 
emphatically *not* like <a href=""/> or xml:href.  

It would be easier on all parties is a SkunkLink attribute were
used in this situation: <xsl:import xml:src=''/> and <xsl:include
xml:src=''/>.  The tag name would provide the semantic context (arc
role if you absolutely must), and the attribute would use the same
vocabulary used elsewhere to provide the type of linking to perform
("embedding").  The XSLT language definition would specifiy that
xml:src is required on these two elements, and both xml:href and
xml:src is ignored everywhere else in the vocabulary.  Problem solved.

Z.

• References:
  • RE: SkunkLink: a skunkworks XML linking proposal
    • From: Micah Dubinko <MDubinko@c...>
  • RE: SkunkLink: a skunkworks XML linking proposal
    • From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>

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