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On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 07:44:48PM -0700, Dare Obasanjo wrote:
>
> What does a namespace name point to became a philosophical question once
> the Namespaces in XML editors decided to use URIs and not URLs. At least
I could agree with that if the change to URIs had led to the widespread
usage of non-http URIs (e.g. URNs). But, as you well know, that hasn't
happened. And given that most actual namespace URIs begin with
'http://', saying that "it's a URI, not a URL," will inevitably lead to
confusion and perhaps justifiably be perceived as semantic game-playing.
After all, you don't need the support of a notion called Universal
Resource Identifier to say that a string starting with 'http://' is just
a string. You could have said that in 1960, 1980, or 1995. That doesn't
change the fact that, since sometime in the 90s, 'http://' has come into
common usage as a symbol for a hyperlink target, and that many people
and software applications are conditioned to recognize it as such.
I spent a year teaching introductory XML courses, and this Namespace URI
thing was *always* the most difficult point for people to grasp. After
the first time or two, I made a special effort to explain it as clearly
as I possibly could. Well, some people got it, others didn't. Maybe
something was lacking in my presentation skills, but I tend to think the
notion of a string that looks like the target of a hyperlink but need
not point to anything is inherently confusing.
If web developers and other potential users of XML namespaces need to be
told "It's not what you think," and some of them don't get it even after
being told, then the problem is much more than philosophical.
--
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/
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