Re: [xml-dev] more on "subelement signicance"

[Seairth Jacobs <seairth@seairth.com>]

Bob DuCharme wrote:
> Seairth Jacobs wrote:
>
> >The usefulness of any given subelement is due to the knowledge of its
> >namespace, document type, and/or parent element.  Without any of the
> >three the subelement does not have a useful meaning.
>
> I can think of many specific questions, but I'll start with the general
> ones:
>
> 1. Why subelement? Why not "The usefulness of any given element"?

Since the root element has not parent element, I included only subelements.
Also, it is often possible to determine context from the root element alone.

> 2. The "and/or" confuses me. Are you saying that, for a (sub)element to
have
> some meaning, one or more of (namespace, document type, parent element)
must
> be known? That if only one is known, the element may have some usefulness?
> (I'm not arguing this point, just looking for some clarification.)

Yes, this is what I meant.

> Now I'll argue: there are certain element type names used often enough in
> enough contexts that their usefulness can be inferred without knowing
either
> their namespace, document type, or parent, e.g. xref and emph. (I would
rule
> out h1, <a href=""/>, and p as examples because we generally do assume a
> particular doctype for them based on common usage.)

So these types of elements have a sort of "globally implied" definition that
is independent of a specific doctype?   If the above statement were to be
extended to include these "global" elements within a given domain, would the
statement be complete?  I gotta go think about this a bit...

---
Seairth Jacobs
seairth@seairth.com