Re: [xml-dev] To namespace or not to Namespace ....

[Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org>]

On Mon, 2010-04-05 at 18:56 -0400, David wrote:
[...]
> Up until now we've never used namespaces. We've been blissfully 
> unaffected by not using namespaces.   XQuery and XSLT and pure Java 
> programs have had no problem with having no namespaces.   The data is 
> typically in "silos" and while sometimes referenced together, is not of 
> the "module" sort intended to be embedded in other XML documents, but 
> rather fully standalone data (which may reference each other with loose 
> couplings).

> Any *practical* suggestions ?

The primary reason to use namespaces for XML data is for disambiguation.
A secondary aspect of that is to trigger specific behaviour -- e.g. a
generic XML browser recognising mathml or svg.

If you don't have an ambiguity problem, the complexity of namespaces
is simply unlikely to give you any benefit.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
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