Re: IRIs everywhere (including XML namespaces)

At 9:09 AM -0700 10/9/02, Jonathan Marsh wrote:
>The XML Activity has been fairly enthusiastic in adopting IRIs [1]
>(under various nomenclature).  In particular, we have encouraged users
>to put IRIs in XML documents, and described how such IRIs can be
>converted to URIs consumable by legacy URI processors and resolvers.
>

The IRI spec is still a draft, and subject to change. The current 
draft expires at the end of the year. It is unacceptable for a 
finished spec such as XLink to depend on a mutable draft. (In fact, I 
don't think XLink does. I think the claim that an XLink href 
attribute contains an IRI is inaccurate. More on that in another 
message.)

While IRIs seem like a good idea in theory, until the IRI spec is 
actually finished, it is impossible to test this in practice. Other 
specifications that are beyond working draft status should use URIs 
exclusively. Alternately, a spec should wait for IRIs to be finished 
before advancing to candidate recommendation.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
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|  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/  |
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Received on Thursday, 10 October 2002 10:49:34 UTC