Re: [xml-dev] "Introducing MicroXML, Part 1: Explore the basic principle

[David Carlisle <davidc@nag.co.uk>]

On 02/07/2012 09:47, John Cowan wrote:
> Chiefly I think because XLink was slow to come out and was too
> complicated to hit the 80/20 sweet spot.  Now we have revised it to
> do so, but it's too late.

The revision is better but I think that xlink still isn't "too late" it
is _wrong_.

The revision means you don't have to specify xlink:type but you still
have to use xlink:href and as such I don't think even the revised
version would have been used in XHTML (and related contexts) even had it
been ready at the time. hyperlinking is central to (X)HTML and so
HTML-specific attribute <a href="..."> <img src="..."> are the right
thing to do. Forcing end users to declare an extra namespace and rename
all the attributes is just wrong.

XML doesn't in general reserve element and attribute names so as to give
language designers using the syntax freedom over naming language
constructs, and that applies just as much to attributes that imply links
as any other.

David

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