xml-dev - RE: Namespace URI address resources

[Ronald Bourret <rbourret@ito.tu-darmstadt.de>]

The nice thing about using the URI to find (as opposed to to point to) the 
schema is that it's an easily defended argument. "Oh, yes," you say. "We 
don't really prohibit you from doing other things with the namespace URI. 
We don't even violate its sanctity. We just use it as a unique identifier 
in the identification process."

But if it doesn't point to the schema directly, how is any generic piece of 
software ever going to use it in the identification process? A Universal 
URI-To-Schema Resolver strikes me as rather less likely than a universal 
public identifier resolver. I mean, how many parsers today can resolve 
public identifiers to DTDs? Can you imagine how far XML would have gotten 
if the only way to associate a DTD with a document was through a public 
identifier?

My apologies for the sarcasm, but although I find the use of namespace URIs 
to find schemas a wonderful theoretical idea, I'm having more than a little 
trouble seeing how it could possibly work in practice.

-- Ron Bourret


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