Re: Lessons learned from the XML experiment

Michael Kay wrote:

"Namespaces account for a very significant chunk of user difficulties with XML, a great deal of the complexity of specifications like XSD and XSLT, a similar proportion of the complexity of APIs, and a vast amount of the code in implementations of these specs. And they aren't necessary! The world could have managed perfectly well with a convention where the element name <org.w3c.svg> means "in this subtree, I'm using SVG element names"."

Michael, you are not serious, are you? Would you suggest that users start to parse names and, depending on whether the name string matches some "convention", infer that something means an apple, rather than a pear?

My view: XML stands for precision, relentless, mathematical precision. XML allows us to distinguish and locate items in an unambiguous way without any respect to the number of competing items and current "conventions". XML allows us to integrate information from any number of sources in a reliable way, as it relies on URIs - document URIs & qualified names. XML creates a new dimension of what is possible in terms of information processing - in particular transformation. XML is not a syntax, but a way of thinking about information, which scales globally. The problem at this point in time is the lack of language - there has not yet been established a common language which captures the new possibilities. People can't think what they have neither words for, nor images arising from intense experience.

Hans-Juergen