xml-dev - Re: Begging the Question (the novel)

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 11:27 AM 12/30/00 -0800, Lisa Rein wrote:
>It's relevant because the XML Schema structures specification provides
>the syntactical "glue" to connect to a schema to a document for
>validation (what would probably be getting done if the URI was
>dereferenced, as is  perfectly legal, blah, blah blah).

I'd suggest (and have suggested) that it's worthwhile to question whether
the XML Schema work is where the description of URIs as glue really belongs.

At best, it seems to take work begun by a group working on XML as a whole
and transfer it to a group with a much narrower set of priorities.  At
worst, it seems likely to compromise other non-W3C XML Schema possibilities
for interpreting namespace URIs.  Even if the WG bends over backwards to be
fair to other possibilities (which Henry Thompson's earlier posts certainly
didn't preclude), it doesn't really seem like namespace URI interpretation
is a problem that the Schema WG should own, at least to me, a mere outside
observer.

I also have to wonder whether telling developers to go read the XML Schemas
spec to find out what namespaces mean and how they are used is going to
leave a lot of developers shaking their heads over how such a small spec
got entangled with such an enormous spec...

That something is legal doesn't necessarily make it the best approach.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books