RE: [xml-dev] Re: Why REST was Re: [xml-dev] URIs are simply names

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

Interesting, where in the XML namespaces recommendation does it state
this? The closest thing to this I can find is 

"[Definition:] An XML namespace is a collection of names, identified by
a URI reference [RFC2396], which are used in XML documents as element
types and attribute names. XML namespaces differ from the 'namespaces'
conventionally used in computing disciplines in that the XML version has
internal structure and is not, mathematically speaking, a set

So now we know that a namespace is *identified* by a URI reference, so
lets look at what RFC 2396[0] has to say about what URIs are

"A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact string of characters
   for identifying an abstract or physical resource. "

Well, so now all we need to do is figure out what a resource is from
further down in the RFC which is 

"Resource
      A resource can be anything that has identity.  Familiar
      examples include an electronic document, an image, a service
     (e.g., "today's weather report for Los Angeles"), and a
     collection of other resources.  Not all resources are network
     'retrievable'; e.g., human beings, corporations, and bound
     books in a library can also be considered resources."


Hopefully this clears up any confusion that you had as to whether the
URI references in a namespace name are actually always identifiers for a
network retrievable resource. 

Like I said to Paul, if you want to change what it means to be an XML
namespace then talk to the W3C about updating the namespace
recommendation instead of claiming that XML namespaces are something
that they are not. 


[0] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt

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again.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Borden [mailto:jborden@attbi.com] 
> Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 7:38 PM
> To: Dare Obasanjo; Paul Prescod; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Re: Why REST was Re: [xml-dev] URIs 
> are simply names
> 
> 
> Dare Obasanjo wrote:
> 
> [[
> A namespace URI is not a HTTP URL nor is not even necessarily 
> a web accessible resource. Pretending otherwise is folly. ]]
> 
> Not sure what you mean but: every XML namespace URI 
> identifies a resource.
> 
> 
> Jonathan
> 
>