Re: [xml-dev] HTML5 and almost no namespaces

[John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>]

David Lee scripsit:

> A suggest in this example namespaces are irrelevant.  A scheme (or as
> you say the context) can clearly distinguish between the two "title"
> elements (they could be defined as local elements).

Certainly.  The question I was addressing is this: Is it good design
to use the same name for elements that have truly different semantics,
which is a sort of pun?  I'd say no, even if context disambiguates:

<myStuff>
  <rock>
    <hardness>7</hardness>
    <!-- on the Mohr scale: as hard as quartz -->
  </rock>
  <booze>
    <hardness>50</hardness>
    <!-- alcohol content: could be U.S. proof, U.K. proof, or percentage,
         you have to look in the documentation -->
  </booze>
</myStuff>

This design rule is orthogonal to the use of namespaces.

-- 
John Cowan   cowan@ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
If a soldier is asked why he kills people who have done him no harm, or a
terrorist why he kills innocent people with his bombs, they can always
reply that war has been declared, and there are no innocent people in an
enemy country in wartime.  The answer is psychotic, but it is the answer
that humanity has given to every act of aggression in history.  --Northrop Frye