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Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
> On Thursday 31 January 2002 05:43 pm, Steven R. Newcomb wrote:
> > It's a simple fact that the generic identifier is just
> > an attribute value, like all other attribute values,
> > except that it's the value of the one-and-only nameless
> > attribute.
>
> I'm entirely in agreement with this. You say "an element HAS-A gi", so
> this is obviously an attribute of the object (as all names are
> ultimately.... a rose by any other name...).
>
> I was surprised to get no reaction when I asserted that aplha-renaming
> is *precisely* what I think namespace do... but this is one large part
> of the reasoning.
>
It is not a simple fact at least if we are still talking about XML. XML 1.0
says that the _type_ of an element is its name or GI. Generally the 'type
attribute' has a special place in the list of 'attributes', i.e. the "isa"
link. So, not (element has-a GI) rather (element isa GI). The value, to me,
of the namespace URI is that the "isa" link can traverse the web, which I
find useful. I have no opinion about alpha-renaming, or how you might use
that to traverse the web. In any case it is not typical to equate "isa" and
"has-a" links and I suspect that if you do so, you will lose processing
capabilities.
Jonathan
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