Re: Extensibility strategies

On Aug 5, 2008, at 14:29, Sam Ruby wrote:
> Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote on 08/05/2008 06:39:58 AM:
> > Or is this thread really about establishing a mechanism that  
> involves
> > binding a prefix to a URI using reserved attributes starting with
> > "xmlns:" and then using the prefix in front of local names separated
> > by a colon?
>
> There are some advantages to such an approach, and some  
> disadvantages.  Some of the advantages include working with the DOM  
> API.  Some of the disadvantages include usability issues that you  
> have referred to.  Other solutions which do not involve attributes  
> starting with "xmlns:" can be found which map onto the DOM API.   
> There may be ways to mitigate the usuability issus with solutions  
> which involve colons in element names.
>

I'd rather not recap the whole ARIA discussion, since I've had that  
discussion way too many times. However, compatibility with the DOM is  
the major *dis*advantage of *any* scheme that puts a colon in element  
or attribute names, since the colon is already special in XML and IE.

With a colon in names, you can't have DOM consistency with all of  
these at the same time:
  * text/html in existing shipped versions of Firefox, Safari and Opera.
  * text/html in existing shipped versions of IE.
  * text/html in future HTML5-supporting browsers.
  * application/xhtml+xml in existing shipped versions of Firefox,  
Safari and Opera.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Tuesday, 5 August 2008 12:03:42 UTC