Re: xml:* attributes

James Clark scripsit:

> Option A is the simplest option, and is attractive for that reason. If
> I ask myself, "can I do descriptive markup cleanly without using the
> xml: attributes?", then the answer is obviously "yes".  Spelling
> "xml:lang" as "lang" does not impact my ability as an document author
> to do simple yet high-quality descriptive markup. 

It does, however, impair the ability of processors that don't know the
document type to extract certain kinds of information from the document.
This may or may not be a worthwhile goal, but it has been pursued not only
in the xml: namespace, but for essentially all namespaced attributes.
For example, the xslt:version attribute serves to identify documents
that are XSLT stylesheets even when their elements are not in the XSLT
namespace.

> The right choice is not at all obvious to me: there are strong
> arguments for and against all three options. I think this (together
> with our position on prefixed attributes generally) is the hardest
> decision facing this group.

+1

-- 
John Cowan   http://ccil.org/~cowan   cowan@ccil.org
'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull
as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the
large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will
jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.'
        --the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake

Received on Wednesday, 15 August 2012 04:01:06 UTC