Re: ERB decision: colon as name character

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997 17:50:46 -0400 (EDT) you said:
>This decision strongly implies that a particular namespace resolution
>strategy is "on the way." You could achieve the same effect (without the
>side-effect) by merely saying that ":" is a legal name character but is
>reserved for future use (without saying what that use might be).

The inference you are drawing is unwarranted:  there is no guarantee
that the name-space solution eventually adopted for XML will use
colons in names.  The problem (at least the problem I have) with
not explaining why colon is reserved is that it divides the world
into the in-group (who know why it's reserved and get to experiment)
and the out-group (who don't know why and who are effectively told
not to experiment).  It's reserved for a simple reason and there
seems no need to keep that reason secret.  Is there?

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen

Received on Sunday, 29 June 1997 19:31:06 UTC