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Re: Registered Namespace prefixes

• To: Jeff Lowery <Jeff.Lowery@c...>
• Subject: Re: Registered Namespace prefixes
• From: "Emmanuil Batsis (Manos)" <mbatsis@n...>
• Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 20:40:28 +0200
• Cc: XML Dev <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <4827EC373E03DB44AC2AB3900430896B0265F8@w...>
• References: <4827EC373E03DB44AC2AB3900430896B0265F8@w...>
• User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130

Unfortunatelly, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to 
introduce and get a new namespace mechanism accepted by the industry and 
standards forces.

<flameproof>

If it counts to anything, what I dislike about namespaces is that there 
is no formally accepted relationships between (e.g.)

http://www.mydomain.com/ns/base/
http://www.mydomain.com/ns/base/module1
http://www.mydomain.com/ns/base/module1/submodule

as a way to organize vocabulary modules.

Another missing part is a formal scheme for URI versioning...

</flameproof>

Cheers,

Manos




Jeff Lowery wrote:
> Wait a sec while I change into my Nomex suit...
> 
> I'd like to propose a mechanism for minimizing namespace hassles while
> maintaining readability. I expect this will raise hackles immediately, but
> hear me out:
> 
> The mechanism for declaring namespace prefixes seems to be the primary
> failure point for namespaces. The association by scope of a prefix and it's
> declaration gives rise to all sorts of mischief when scope changes during
> document manipulation. Add default namespace declarations and things get way
> too interesting sometimes.
> 
> All-in-all, given the design motivations of the WG, the basic mechanism is
> sound on a syntax level.  Unfortunately, it creates dependencies withing a
> document that then need to be managed both internally and externally. Is
> there a way to manage these dependencies better,  make them more
> idiot-proof? 
> 
> My opinion is that the answer lies in a prefix registry.  I know that's
> controversial, mainly because it creates an authority structure that has to
> be consulted prior to assigning prefixes to names.  I think this can be
> mitigate, though, by having a provisional namespace prefix mechanism that is
> essentially the same as it exists now, minus default namespaces.  Registered
> prefixes would then be denoted by special naming conventions.
> 
> The advantage of a registry is that prefixed names become universal names
> when prefixes are registered.  There are no scope issues. The primary
> disadvantage of registration is that there will be a prefix rush.  I don't
> see a dependency on access to the registry at parse time, unless there are
> resources to be associated with the prefix (such as a URI to a RDDL doc)
> that the parser needs. 
> 
> And, lastly, default namespace declarations would have to go...
> 
> I'm sure this is not a new proposal, but it's been at least a year since it
> was shot down last time... :-}   Those permathreads need regular wear or
> they grow stiff.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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    • From: Jeff Lowery <Jeff.Lowery@c...>

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