Re: SAX Filters for Namespace Processing

[Tom Bradford <bradford@dbxmlgroup.com>]

Ronald Bourret wrote:
> Not true. If you transfer the fragment with DOM, the namespace
> information is carried along. This is only true if you transfer the
> fragment with a text editor. As many threads on xml-dev have shown,
> text-based processing of XML is hazardous at best.

Do you understand how this statement completely contradicts the original
intent of XML?  

I'm not faulting you for it, I'm saying that we've gotten to a point
where a human-readable, human-editable text format for structured data
has become a complex nightmare where somebody can safely say "As many
threads on xml-dev have shown, text-based processing of XML is hazardous
at best" and be perfectly valid in saying it.

This is *not* why I became interested in XML.  I'm going to go out on a
limb and say that this is not why most people became interested in XML. 
The majority of those people are outside of this list, and outside of
the walls of the W3C.  They actually want to *use* XML, instead of sit
around and argue about how to add more features to it, and then how to
deal with the resulting complexity.  

Just about every person I know who uses XML as a data format (as opposed
to a way of life) has absolutely no use for namespaces, or any of the
other incredibly complex layers of XML.  Yet, we keep producing them. 
And worse, we force people to use them by introducing interdependencies,
so if they need one, they get three or four others.  How does that help
anyone?

If we wanted a format for structured data that wasn't simple, and that
you can't edit by hand, then there are plenty out there already.  Hell,
we may as well start telling most businesses to stick with EDI, because
at this point, most of the code's in place, and it's not going to get
any more complex.

I'm really starting to wonder whether or not I should quit this business
and become a friggin' carpenter.

-- Tom