Re: [xml-dev] Marketplace XML Vocabularies

[Mike Sokolov <sokolov@ifactory.com>]

On 01/05/2010 11:04 AM, Michael Kay wrote:
>> If not, what sort
>> of construct do you think does have intrinsic meaning?
>>      
> I'm no linguistics philosopher, but I find it hard to imagine any sequence
> of symbols can convey information to someone who has no prior knowledge that
> enables them to attach meaning to the symbols, unless perhaps the symbols
> are visual representations of objects that both the sender and receiver are
> familiar with.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
> http://twitter.com/michaelhkay
>    
Yes, I'm not either (I only impersonate one on this mailing list), and I 
agree that symbols need to refer to an external source to gain meaning.

I think maybe the point Jim was making was that URIs, by virtue of 
referring to something external, attach meaning, wheras element names do 
not, in themselves, do that.  Of course URIs might not resolve to 
anything (meaningful), and element names could refer to an external 
schema which might provide meaning, too, so that does tend to erase the 
distinction he was making, but there is at least the implicit notion of 
a URI as being resolvable, which isn't built in to an element name.

-Mike