Re: Pardon my stupidity

Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote:
> >| At 11:07 AM 2/24/97 -0500, Sam Hunting wrote:
> >| >> >Why not just "xlink"?
> >| > As Jon points out, it needs to begin with "XML-"
>
> Uh, why was that, again?  If we have a reserved attribute named "XML-LINK",
> used to select among somewhere between 2 and 5 different types of
> elements that make up the linking machinery, then we *own* this attribute.
> Why do we need to prefix the *values* with "XML-"?  It seems like
>
> <A XML-LINK="LINK"> or <WHIZZY-POINTER XML-LINK="XLINK">
>
> are safe and unambiguous.
>
> I suspect there was a good reason for this that I managed to miss, and
> I can't dig it out of the correspondence. -Tim


This might be because of a misguided fear that if we prescribe
a set of values for the XML-LINK architectural control attribute
then we'll be invading users' namespace for enumerated attribute
values, a la:

	<!ATTLIST mylink
		xml-link (link|xlink)	#FIXED "LINK"
		otheratt (foo|bar|link)	#IMPLIED
		    -- oops, duplicate token in attribute declared value --
	>

This fear is misguided because nobody needs do it that way,
declared value NAME works just fine:

	<!ATTLIST mylink
	    xml-link NAME #FIXED "LINK"
	    otheratt (foo|bar|link) #IMPLIED
	>


It could also be that the value of the XML-LINK attribute
specifies an XML-LINK architectural form, and if we allow
10744-style architectural minimization (wherein GIs may
be automatically interpreted as architectural form names)
this would invade users' element type namespace.


--Joe English

  jenglish@crl.com

Received on Monday, 24 February 1997 19:25:45 UTC