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- From: Arjun Ray <aray@q2.net>
- To: xml-dev <xml-dev@xml.org>
- Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 08:01:42 -0500 (EST)
On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Tim Bray wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that what AFs do is a superset of what namespaces
> do. David Megginson has proved conclusively that using namespaces
> doesn't get in the way of using AFs.
IOW, namespaces are unnecessary and insufficient. :)
Consider this reworked, but rather familiar example:
<?xml:arch public-id="http://www.w3.org/HTML/1998/html4"
form-att="h" auto="yes" ?>
<?xml:arch public-id="http://www.xml.com/books"
form-att="xdc" auto="no" ?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Book Review</title>
</head>
<body xdc="bookreview">
<div xdc="title">XML: A Primer</div>
<table>
<tr align="center">
<th>Author</th> <th>Price</th>
<th>Pages</th> <th>Date</th>
</tr>
<tr align="left">
<td xdc="author">Simon St.Laurent</td>
<td xdc="price">31.98</td>
<td xdc="pages">352</td>
<td xdc="date">1998/01</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
> The only reason why the AF framework wasn't used to do the job of
> namespaces (and yes, we thought about it a lot) is that the syntax
> for AF-ing attributes is ugly and complicated.
"Ugly" and "complicated" are both value judgments - enough that a
dissenting opinion is worth recording.
- I'll grant that a number of people find practically *all*
of SGML/XML syntax imperishably ugly. But, if syntax like
... name="value" ...
is ugly, then it's by no means clear how colonifying names
suddenly beautifies matters.
- Considering how some attribute values can have very complex
internal syntax (URLs come to mind), I wonder what's so
complicated about a series of tokens
... renamer="old1 new1 old2 new2..." ...
none of which are individually more complicated than a name.
> The syntax for namespaces is uniform for attributes and elements,
> and much simpler.
I find namespace usage in practice hideously verbose and cluttered.
Actually, I've yet to see a *good* example non-trivially contrasting
"ugly and complicated" with "uniform and simpler". So far, onlookers
get plugs for one side and... potshots at the other.
> Not simpler because of better design, just simpler because it's
> trying to solve a much smaller problem.
We all know that the whole business *started* with colonified names.
Apparently, the syntactic device by itself created enough warm fuzzy
feelings in some quarters that, come what may, *some* problem for this
solution just had to be, um, found.
Arjun
--
"The bottomline is that it is really difficult to solve a problem when
the problem does not exist." - Masataka Ohta.
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