xml-dev - Re: XLink a special case in the self-describing Web?

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

Steven R. Newcomb scripsit:

> (It would work quite well if a namespace declaration
> referred, in addition to the domain name itself, to a dated version of
> the document (!) that constitutes the table of all extant domain names
> and their owners, and if the database of all domain names and their
> owners at any point in time could be queried in much the same rapid,
> universal way that is today used to resolve domain names to IP
> addresses.)

For this very reason, all W3C-assigned namespaces (with certain
grandfathered exceptions) are of the form "http://www.w3.org/yyyy/..."
where yyyy is a date.

Of course the total state of the DNS is not represented in any one
place, which would hardly be practical.

> Again, it's just my neurosis, if you like, that names have to be
> meaningful in order to be useful.  All these XML Namespace names seem
> to me about as useful as leaves blowing in the wind.  Information that
> I create today, using XML Namespaces, is far too subject to loss of
> value, because of the high probability that the leaves will blow away.
> I don't choose to invest my own life in the creation of information
> that will not have the power to last.  I can't recommend such
> practices to my customers, either, regardless of the popularity of XML
> Namespaces.  Ars longa, vita brevis, etc.

Then work hard on getting the FPI registration process repaired,
so that there is a stable alternative.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
	Yes, I know the message date is bogus.  I can't help it.
		--me, on far too many occasions

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