Re: [XHTML 2] 25.2 role and QNames in attribute context (PR#7757)

Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:23:28 +0100, Shane McCarron 
> <xhtml2-issues@hades.mn.aptest.com> wrote:
>> QNames are the way that the working group, and indeed the W3C, handle 
>> having
>> data that comes from differing sources. The working group is not 
>> willing to
>> change course at this time.
> 
> The TAG finding I was able to find on this seems not really to promote 
> this in any way:
>  <http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/qnameids.html>
> 
> Especially given section 5 of that finding I don't think this is a good 
> way to solve the problem. Having browsers to implement support for XML 
> Schema in order to support supposedly simple features from XHTML 2.0 is 
> not really satisfactory.

The advantages of QNames in this context are many:

 1. Classical usage (such as rel="index") can stay the same.
 2. It is extensible, so that you don't have to reissue the language for 
new values.
 3. It allows the user or communities to add new values without fear of 
clashing with other users or communities (and at least two communities, 
WAI and DI, are already doing this).
 4. It allows you to use existing values from other communities, such as 
rel="dc:rights".
 5. Standard methods of discovering what a value means have been developed.
 4. It is low-hurdle, since there is no need to register values with a 
central authority.
 4. It is a relatively simple mechanism, widely used in W3C technologies.

It is not true that the browser has to support XML Schema in order for 
it to work. All the browser has to know, if it needs to do anything 
special with these values at all, is that the attribute is a QName. That 
is no different than needing to know that src or href is a URI. 
Resolving the prefix, should that be necessary, is little different than 
having to keep track of xml:base attributes.

Best wishes,
Steven Pemberton

Received on Thursday, 26 January 2006 12:13:29 UTC