xml-dev - Re: ATTN: Please comment on XHTML (before it's too late)

[Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>]

David Megginson wrote:
> 
> The same time you'd create a new Java package, or change a company's
> domain name -- i.e. when it's no longer identifiable as the same
> thing.  

Wouldn't it be considered extremely bad practice to make version 1.1 of
a Java package be backwards incompatible with version 1.0? Well the
various versions of HTML are *incompatible* in a very basic sense:
documents conforming to one do not conform to another.

> If the HTML WG decides that <a> should mean 'answer' rather
> than 'anchor', they should create a new Namespace; until then, leave
> it be.

So if HTML 6.0 has <a xlink:href=""> and not <a href=""> they should
keep the same namespace? And if next year's <a> element allows
<xlink:locator> sub-elements? And removes the href attribute? 

When is different different enough? I claim that as soon as any
application could break because of the difference, that's different
enough.

What's the point of the namespace if you cannot rely on consistency in
the objects that claim to derive from it? 

 Paul Prescod



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