xml-dev - Re: illegal namespace usage

[Lisa Rein <lisarein@finetuning.com>]

Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> 
> At 05:11 PM 8/9/99 -0700, Lisa Rein wrote:
> >Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> >
> >> I've concluded that namespaces itself is a great idea.  I've also concluded
> >> that integrating it with XML 1.0 in any reliable way is pretty much
> >> impossible.
> >
> >Please explain this statement.
> 
> Sure - piece of cake.  I think we've been over these issues a few hundred
> times, but no problem. 

lisa:
Oh no, i am NOT trying to relaunch the usual debate about Namespaces or
XSL implementations, i thought you meant something specfic, not the
usual hypothetical worries...

 (I really do hope I'm not reminding the list of
> some of its more frightening days in any troubling way.)

too late, it has reminded and is troubling for me...:-)

> 

> But none of those applications is beginning to stress out namespaces.  None
> of them are dealing with XML validation in a context where prefixes have
> conflicted and needed to be changed to something other than what's in the
> DTD, for example. 

More hypothetical worries?

Well whip up an application and test it out if you're losing sleep over
it -- what would you do when that dreaded conflict occurs?  Figure it
out, cross that bridge and all that...  


simon:
> 
> Particular applications do use namespaces reliably.  That doesn't mean that
> all possibilities opened by the spec can be used reliably.

Not every option all the time every day for everyone, however, under
certain circumstances, most of the scenarios are "possible".  That's why
they are called "possibilities" :-)

And in this vein POOF!   an option was provided!


simon:
> 
> Basically, none of these applications is really doing anything exciting
> that couldn't have been done just by focusing on the prefix.  

> 

 I wasn't saying that they were doing anything exciting,  we were
debating the "impossibility of integrating namespaces with xml v. 1.0" ,
and we have now established that it is not impossible to do, because
many have done it, and that you were really more un-satisfied with the
level of innovation of the namespace-aware implementations to date more
than anything else, and are looking forward to the creation of a "killer
app? that will test out the limits of the namespace syntax mechanism --
and take it for a real test drive, but in a useful and creative way.

We all look forward to that. 

simon:
While
> (hopefully) they do check beyond the prefix, none of them has explored the
> terra incognita that's out there.

"terra incognita" ?  is that contagious?  Maybe i'll hold off for now on
exploring "beyond the prefix" :-)

lisa

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