RE: Namespace wildcards

> In light of all the issues with namespaces that already exist, I feel 
> compelled to ask whether the namespace wildcards introduced in XPath 
> 2.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/#node-tests> are a good idea. 

[snip]

>  Do we 
> really want to allow this? Do we actually need this? I'm really 
> afraid this is going to further confuse developers about namespaces 
> and encourage bad practices.

Presumably if you match on a wild card you know what you're doing? Why else
would you be using them?

I do have some XSLT which matches on local-name() for this very reason: I
don't care what namespace the source was from, the transformation is
generic.  However, for my purposes, local-name() is sufficient.  However, I
can imagine some generic templates where other Xpath manipulation is wanted
and local-name won't suffice (IE; you want multiple nodes)...???

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