Re: [xml-dev] Acronym spaces, namespaces, and authority (was Re: [xml-dev] WXS acronym?)

Mike Champion <> writes:

> 8/18/2002 3:38:14 AM, Francis Norton <> wrote:
> 
> 
> >>I just think the acronym space is too heavily populated for it to be
> >>much use outside of very focussed groups to use lots of acronyms.
> >>
> >That's a fair point in general, but I don't think it applies once you've 
> >already associated acronyms to a language via file suffixes and 
> >namespace prefixes.
> 
> This is a profound little conundrum we find ourselves in!  
> 
> The idea of an authority such as Microsoft, or IANA, or "general 
> consensus" associating file suffixes to a particular meaning is 
> considered a violation of the principles of the Web by the
> W3C leadership, and the namespaces spec was designed to to 
> prevent such a thing by forcing prefixes to be mapped onto URIs.
> (or "URI-syntax globally unique strings", I don't wanna go there).

Another good reason for not pretending to 'bless' acronyms.  I use xs:
and xsd: alternately as the namespace prefix for
http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema precisely for this reason, and
dislike the fact that I am pretty much stuck with .xsd as the file
suffix.

ht
-- 
  Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
          W3C Fellow 1999--2002, part-time member of W3C Team
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