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XML Namespaces 1.1

• From: Rick Yorgason <rick@firefang.com>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 22:34:51 -0400

Hi everyone,

I have to say that I love catching up on all the discussions on XML 
reform that this list seems to host semi-annually (that's only half 
sarcastic: as a programmer, I get way more entertainment than I should 
from day dreaming about how things can be re-engineered to be cleaner) 
but it always frustrates me that none of this stuff ever gets acted 
upon, when even the smallest feature could improve our lives a lot.

Case in point: there's almost universal acceptance that XML namespaces 
are a problem, because recommending URIs as namespaces was a mistake, 
and because there's no way to refer to a namespaced entity name without 
xmlns syntax.

Now, people have come up with some great proposals that would vastly 
improve namespaces, but in reality, we can fix 90% of the problems with 
just one new rule and one suggestion:

* If a prefix doesn't match a declared xmlns (formerly ill-formed) it 
shall be shorthand for including an xmlns="prefix" attribute.
* Namespaces should be in reversed DNS form.

With those two changes, namespaces are no longer awkward to use, no 
longer difficult to teach, and the cost of adoption for existing 
libraries is approximately three lines of code.  So what do we have to 
do to get a new "Namespaces in XML" standard published with these 
minimal changes?

Cheers,

-Rick-

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: XML Namespaces 1.1
    • From: Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org>