RE: [xml-dev] xml:href, xml:rel and xml:type

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

On Fri, 2012-04-13 at 12:59 +0000, Rushforth, Peter wrote:
> [...]

> As I understand it, mastery of the web was a goal of
> XML, so I'm just dreaming a little.

It was not a goal of XML.

The primary goal of XML was getting existing SGML documents and
work-flows onto the Web. The work was originally called Web SGML.

Your comment did I think reach the XML Core Working Group; the group
meets two or three times a month for half an hour, so don't expect an
immediate response :-) However, I think the first reaction was to point
you towards XLink and XPointer.

If "mastery of the Web" _had_ been a goal, XML would have been very
different, as Jeni Tennyson pointed out in her keynote at XML Prague
this year.

To answer a more explicit question (from a personal perspective), the
cost of introducing xml:href would be risking breaking existing XML
systems, which are far more likely to work with xlink:href. And there's
no clear benefit.

The biggest problem I see with XLink is that it did not address "link
discovery through architectural forms" - the process of saying, "in this
XML vocabulary, the "cf" attribute on any element with three vowels in
the element name is a link constructed by using the template
  concat(@cf, "?", local-name(), "=", .)

I could see great value in such a specification if I thought anyone
would implement and use it.

Best,

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/