Namespaces A Mess? (was: Candle 0.8 - a new scripting language for XML)

["Doug Schepers" <doug@schepers.cc>]

Hi, Michael-

Michael Kay wrote:
|  
| Namespaces are a mess that needs sorting out, 
| but if we're going to sort them out, a lot of discussion is 
| needed to agree on how it is done.

Without trying to start a lengthy thread, I'm genuinely curious what this
means. In what way are namespaces a mess? What issues arise due to
namespaces, in practical terms. Prima facie, they seem to me to be useful
and simple.

I can see 2 points against them:
* they increase the size of a file (though I don't think unduly so);
* the idea that attributes are in a null namespace is unintuitive and I'm
not sure I see why they shouldn't be in the namespace of the XML dialect
where they are defined.

Neither of these outweigh the utility. But maybe there's some other issues
you could explain?

Thanks-
Doug

doug.schepers@vectoreal.com
www.vectoreal.com ...for scalable solutions.