[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Just say 'mu' to namespace URIs (was Re: XML 1.1 grinds tohalt
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:56:01 -0700, Joe English <jenglish@f...> wrote: > Mu. We're talking about "Namespaces in XML"; namespace names > aren't URIs (or IRIs), they're opaque character strings which > are supposed to conform to the syntax of URIs (or IRIs). > The network is irrelevant. <rant permathread="true"> For what very little it's worth, three years of this discussion has simply convinced me that in general namespace names should be URNs: like namespace names they're abstract identifiers, and AFAIK there are no issues about comparing them. Tim Bray and Berners-Lee argue against this in the most recent TAG IRC: 19:22:35 [DanC] Bray: I remain convinced that URNs are almost always a bad idea for XML namespaces. 19:22:39 [DanC] Chris: because...? 19:22:56 [DanC] TimBL: because either they're not resolvable or you're reinventing HTTP. TimBL's right, of course, but: a) there's still no consensus on what dereferencing a namespace URI should produce; b) there is a very significant *conceptual* price people pay, and pay, and pay for getting mixed up by the different semantics of namespace names and URIs (such as internationalization/localization and comparison, just to name this week's hot potatoes); c) the 'unenlightened' but influential folks in Redmond WA and Washington DC are voting with their feet for URNs and this debate is likely to become moot Real Soon Now; and d) W3C could have "reinvented HTTP" to resolve URNs in a distributed, reliable manner several times over with the effort that has gone into this debate. </rant> Speaking only for myself, and I will now shut up and crawl back under my rock for another year or so until the permanentness of this permathread gets under my skin once again :-) I KNOW that there are good arguments against this rant, but it's just soooooooo frustrating to watch the W3C "grind to a halt" over this that I just can't think about them anymore.
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