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> > Are those resisting namespaces just being stupid/stubborn, or are they the
"canaries
> > in the coalmines" dropping over from the toxic namespace fumes?
>
> A lot of the arguments I've heard against XML namespaces end with "...but
> I'll use them if I have to...", so I'm not sure about the toxicity. But in
> the context of RDF they make so much sense I personally find it hard to
> understand the objections. But (as has been joyfully pointed out here
> before) RDF/XML is hardly typical XML. So is there a bad smell to
> namespaces? Maybe.
I'd also like to see an valid explanation of this so-called 'toxcitity' some
folks wave about. At several points _in_the_past_ some tools have had major
problems dealing with namespaces properly. This is no longer the case.
> I wouldn't characterise those as much aspects of RSS practice, rather of
> certain practitioners. I don't think the CDATA stuff is quite as bizarre as
> it seems - the motivation is to use HTML markup for content, but without
> namespaces and XHTML this leads to a bit of a mess.
And making the transition to XHTML for content is a HUGE change. Many tools do
not properly emit XHTML. This goes back to the excuses the namespace naysayers
have likely used. But at the present time XHTML isn't a reality for most
content producing environments. I'd certainly /like/ to use it but the tools I
have at my disposal don't make it very pleasant.
> Heh, I agree with your conclusion but not your observations! The first one
> anyway - there has been a continuous tug-of-war between developers that want
> to do things as 'properly' as possible and those that want things to be as
> 'simple' as possible. There probably wouldn't have been any conflict if
> 'simple' hadn't used underspecification as a tool. The 'properly's have
> often frightened the 'simple's when talking about standards, namespaces and
> so on, and now the 'properly's are moving on with Atom. Meanwhile the
> 'simple' RSS 2.0 wagons have circled around some good stuff but also quite a
> lot of garbage.
+1 on the wagon circling analogy. +10 on the idea of how underspecification
(and vendor arrogance) has caused most of the trouble.
-Bill Kearney
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