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   Tearing the Hyperlink Problem Apart (was Re: [xml-dev] Re: Can XLink be

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At 02:43 PM 8/17/2002 -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>Ben Trafford writes:
> > Who cares? Give me a linking spec, and then use it, people!
>
>A closing like this makes me really wonder... hypertext is complex
>enough stuff that I think some serious attention to the fit between
>specs and application is critically important.

         After an exchange on the side, where Simon was kind enough to 
point out that what I wrote didn't reflect my intention, let me rephrase in 
the hopes of attaining clarity:

         What I meant to say was simple in concept, and quite complex in 
application.

         I believe that we need a hyperlinking language that most people 
like. I don't think that any of the solutions on the table are it. I don't 
think that a lot of the discussion going on is terrifically productive.

         I'm a stalwart of this school of thought: "Keep it simple. Solve 
as many problems as you can. Expect that some audience, somewhere, is going 
to be terribly unhappy with your results. Iterate as needed."

         A lot of what I've seen proposed by the XHTML people is well and 
fine. A lot of what I see in XLink is well and fine. A lot of what I see in 
HyTime and other hypertext standards is also well and fine.

         What I'd like to see the list discuss are the substantive problems 
raised by all of these groups, and then tear them apart, one by one....just 
like in the good ol' days of XML, when the XML WG would drop stuff on 
XML-dev, see it hashed out, and then make a decision. That was a good 
process. It worked.

         The XHTML folks' list of complaints with XLink would be a 
wonderful place to start tearing things apart and examining them. And since 
I've spent most of this message attempting to clarify a previous point and 
doing some philosophizing myself, I'll propose a concrete question for 
y'all to tear apart:

         "What do we lose with XHTML dropping 'href' in favour of a 
namespace-specific attribute, be it XLink or otherwise, in consideration of 
the fact that they've already changed huge chunks of a familiar markup 
language?"

         Here's another:

         "Should any generic hyperlinking specification either provide 
behaviour instructions or provide some mechanism to refer to behaviour 
instructions?" (e.g. XLink points to the XHTML spec for the behaviour of a 
simple link in an XHTML application, and XLink points to XSLFOs for the 
processing of the same simple link in an XSLFO-aware browser, etc.)

--->Ben





 

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