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

[Pete Cordell <petexmldev@codalogic.com>]

On 12 July 2012 09:03, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
>
> 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?

Yes, at the IETF and ITU.

> 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.

MUST to SHOULD came up more than once I seem to recall!

> 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.

The fact that there is no logic to it seems completely logical in this case.

Pete Cordell
Codalogic Ltd
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