Re: [xml-dev] So maybe ID isn't a problem after all.

[Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@rbii.com>]

On Friday 09 November 2001 03:40 pm, Tim Bray wrote:
> So given a couple weeks to think about this, I'm starting
> to think that maybe there's no problem.  Given an actual
> real XML language [as opposed to an abstraction] you usually
> know what the ID attributes are.  It's well-defined for SVG,
> XHTML, and pretty well anything else I can think of.  Clearly
> it's essential that an XLink/XPointer processor have an external
> interface by which you can tell it "for this resource, XX is
> an ID attribute".
>
> So where's the problem?  When you're trying to process an
> XLink/XPointer into something and the only thing you know
> about it is that it's XML.  Er..... what's the scenario
> where this happens?  -Tim

This is the key point I think we keep coming back to here. People try to 
add/remove features from XML, when in fact, it's just as easy, even better, 
to do that as an application profile.

Again, from a practical perspective, I don't need xml:base, the stylesheet 
PI, or any of these other things standardised. I got along perfectly welll 
without them before, and will keep on doing so.