[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Motivations for namespaces (sorry)
Thomas B. Passin said: > [Eric van der Vlist] >> >> Chiusano Joseph said: >> > Eric, >> > > >> I would argue that in this case, what's identifying your "document >> type" is the xsi:schemaLocation more than the namespaces! >> My point was rather that namespaces alone are not enough to guess >> what's the document as a whole is about. > > In the task I described a post ago, it is exactly the namespace URI - > OK, in practice it really is the prefix, so there! - that is so > helpful. .../... > That's important. That's why virtually all xslt stylesheets use xsl:. > That's why virtually all XML Schemas use xs: or xsd:. That's why xhtml > documents almost always use html: or xhtml:. It is why we name > variables with mnemonic names rather that "dhf340cksdfnmg". It is > mostly why we use readable URLs instead of GUIDs. Thomas, This sounds like a really innovative use of namespace prefixes! What about languages such as Schematron and Relax NG (not to mention Examplotron which is worse) which use to use a default namespace? Also, let's take a RSS 1.0 document: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:co="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/company/" xmlns:ti="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/textinput/" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/" > <channel rdf:about="http://meerkat.oreillynet.com/?_fl=rss1.0"> <title>Meerkat</title> <link>http://meerkat.oreillynet.com</link> <description>Meerkat: An Open Wire Service</description> <dc:publisher>The O'Reilly Network</dc:publisher> <dc:creator>Rael Dornfest (mailto:rael@o...)</dc:creator> <dc:rights>Copyright © 2000 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.</dc:rights> <dc:date>2000-01-01T12:00+00:00</dc:date> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>2</sy:updateFrequency> <sy:updateBase>2000-01-01T12:00+00:00</sy:updateBase> ... How do you say that's its a RSS document? If we had to use a "rss" prefix for the document element, that would give: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rss:RDF xmlns:rss="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:co="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/company/" xmlns:ti="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/textinput/" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/" > That's technically valid, but isn't it most confusing? Eric -- Freelance consulting and training. http://dyomedea.com/english/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric van der Vlist http://xmlfr.org http://dyomedea.com (W3C) XML Schema ISBN:0-596-00252-1 http://oreilly.com/catalog/xmlschema ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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