Re: [xml-dev] What is @xml:space about?

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

On 12/07/2012 07:33, Pete Cordell wrote:
> Any insights on why xml:space is considered useful, but something like
> xml:href is not?

Have you ever worked on standards committees?

xml:space is the sort of thing that standards committees invent when 
they have spent several days debating a really boring topic like 
whitespace, when it's late in the evening, when there is little sign 
that they will reach agreement on whether whitespace is significant or 
not. So they decide to break the deadlock by saying "let's allow the 
user to decide", and they invent a switch.

The fact that the decision is inconsistent with a decision they made the 
previous week on hyperlinking typically doesn't come into it; no-one 
notices the inconsistency until later, and by then no-one wants to 
re-open the topic.

Michael Kay
Saxonica