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Re: Lessons learned from the XML experiment

• From: Amelia A Lewis <amyzing@talsever.com>
• To: "xml-dev@lists.xml.org" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
• Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:12:53 -0500

This is good ...

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:42:12 +0000, Michael Kay wrote:
> The problems with namespaces are:
> 
> (a) URIs are unwieldy, too unwieldy to use all the time, therefore 
> prefixes were introduced
> 
> (b) Dealing with names that can't be represented as simple strings 
> makes EVERYTHING more complicated (e.g APIs)
> 
> (c) Prefixes make the meaning of XML fragments context-dependent, so 
> there's lots of machinery (e.g. in XSLT) to carry context around
> 
> (d) There's no single universally-agreed definition of the data model 
> (e.g. are redundant namespace declarations significant).

I like to recommend that people follow two conventions that make 
namespaces less onerous:

1) don't prefix elements; change the default-prefix binding; and
2) don't use QNames in content.

Unfortunately ... two of the most significant and often-used XML 
technologies, XSLT and XSD, pretty much can't be used without breaking 
both principles.

And that's the problem with all of the proposals for cleaning up 
namespaces. XSLT and XSD, taken together, represent an enormously 
powerful set of tools for a variety of use cases. Unless you can 
specify and write transformation and data-validation tools of 
approximately equal power for the namespace-repaired XML variant, your 
variant's a non-starter.

Amy!
-- 
Amelia A. Lewis                    amyzing {at} talsever.com
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
                -- Pink Floyd

• References:
  • Lessons learned from the XML experiment
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Lessons learned from the XML experiment
    • From: Stephen Cameron <steve.cameron.62@gmail.com>
  • Re: Lessons learned from the XML experiment
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
  • Fwd: Lessons learned from the XML experiment
    • From: Stephen Cameron <steve.cameron.62@gmail.com>
  • Re: Lessons learned from the XML experiment
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>