Re: breaking up?

[Peter Piatko <piatko@research.telcordia.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Snell" <alaric@alaric-snell.com>
To: "Sean McGrath" <sean.mcgrath@propylon.com>
Cc: <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 12:40 PM
Subject: RE: breaking up?


> On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Sean McGrath wrote:
>
> > I have never - outside of using other W3C technologies - had a need
> > for namespaces and a thin layer of skin peels away from the soles
> > of my feet every time I think about them to hard.
>
> I've never ever heard that expression before!
>

As a person more familiar with programming languages than markup, I find
this akin to having an allergic reaction to the "package" construct in Java.
;-)

I'm sure plenty of people will point out holes in my analogy, but for the
sake of argument, I could say that packages in Java are around simply to
resolve class name conflicts, and (w/ apologies to Sean for paraphrasing his
above comment) that I have never - outside of what comes with the JDK - had
a need for packages and that various layers of skin and limbs fall off just
at the thought of them (i.e. lord forbid if I put *my* class definitions in
a package).

In fact, in Java I don't have to declare my classes in any package, and this
works out fine for small programs, but it's pretty clear that an organizing
principle above class definitions is a good idea as programs get larger.
That's what packages are for.

I tend to think that namespaces in XML at least attempt to play a similar
role to packages in Java.  From the past few days of reading the mailing
list I get the impression that many people don't make use of namespaces.  Am
I making an even vaguely correct statement?  If this is true, I wonder why.
Are vocabularies sufficiently small so that namespaces are unnecessary?

Thanks,

Peter