Re: [xml-dev] A question of necessity

[Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen@gmail.com>]

Aryun Ray wrote:
> In other words, can you formulate a use case where the syntactic
> device of colonified names - and the processing burden that comes with
> it - is necessary?

Define 'necessary'.

I use and love them all the time, but I'm not data heavy; I work in
templating environments where support for similar things are
distinguished by namespaces. Necessary? I *can* live without them. But
they're awfully handy in what I do.


Cheers,

Alex


On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Arjun Ray <arjun.ray@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:59:39 +0000, "Evain, Jean-Pierre"
> <evain@ebu.ch> wrote:
> | From: Michael Kay [mike@saxonica.com]
>
> | > The "matter" is that XML and its programming APIs are excessively
> | > complex. [...] Namespaces are a very significant component of this
> | > excess complexity.
>
> | I personally do not face that sort of problems [...]  One of the
> | dangers of xml is that you can end up with complex data structures
> | if you are not careful. For me this is more the issue. [...]  So
> | I'd like to know more about the development environment where you
> | meet these problems.
>
> Leaving aside the question of whether processing XML is inherently
> complex, there is no doubt that using XML namespaces introduces (more)
> complexity.  (E.g., XPath expressions!)
>
> Are they worth the extra cost?
>
> Turn this around, and consider: *why* use XML Namespaces?  For what
> problem(s) are they the correct solution?
>
> In other words, can you formulate a use case where the syntactic
> device of colonified names - and the processing burden that comes with
> it - is necessary?
>
> Could it be worthwhile to investigate how such use cases could be
> addressed without any new syntax?  (Think SAX 1.x and XPath 1.0, for
> example.)
>
> I think this blast from the past might help.  Here are three posts to
> the comp.text.sgml newsgroup from February 1998 (a time when the XML
> SIG and WG were still extant).  Reading the third first is okay too.
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.text.sgml/sMADjGyC0R4/gSoVLO495cMJ
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.text.sgml/sMADjGyC0R4/AOdQtnqC2kcJ
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.text.sgml/sMADjGyC0R4/LgYWqML4XwMJ
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
>
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org
> List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php



-- 
 Information Alchemist / UX badass / GUI wrangler for hire
 http://thinkplot.org     |  http://www.linkedin.com/in/shelterit