Re: [xml-dev] Xlink Isn't Dead

["Alexander Johannesen" <alexander.johannesen@gmail.com>]

On 9/23/06, Ben Trafford <ben@prodigal.ca> wrote:
>         You can talk about semantics and ontologies and all the stuff that
> has been spinning the wheels of the *ML communities for the last
> twenty years, but until I can render any generic XML with the power
> of an XLink, then I'm not interested.

"I don't care about semantics; I only care about meaning!"

Ontologies are data models (mostly used as systems of logic inference)
that uses linking as _part_ of it. Linking by itself means very
little, in HTML, XML or otherwise. I suspect this debate is once again
about the balance in XML between data and the application of such. As
Key says, what *is* the difference between <element xlink:href="..."
/> and <element arbitrary-one-way-link="..." /> in XML in isolation?
Nothing at all. It's *all* about the application of such, even in
XHTML where it means *nothing* until the browser application use the
data for something.

In the worlds of "semantics" and "ontologies" there are defined rules
for what the application mean (you can say that an ontology is a meta
data model; a data model that has implied semantics). It sounds like
you want there to be more generic application specific things in XML,
not less. I'm of the "less" opinion, but only because, well, I'm in
the ontologies camp. :)

You can use <generic_xml_element xhtml:href="..." />, though, and play
with that namespace.


Alex
-- 
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
                                                         - Frank Herbert
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