Re: Names, namespaces and languages

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:58:39 +0900, Mary Holstege <holstege@mathling.com>  
wrote:
>
> One look at this set of facts is to see that the path semantics
> are defined in terms of a particular set of components, and
> conclude that they therefore have nothing to say about the more
> abstract concept of "the XHTML p element". I believe this is
> Henry's position, and I understand where its coming from.
> I think there's another way to look at this, however. One way
> to make sense of the abstract concept of the XHTML p element
> is to regard it as the set of all possible specific XHTML p
> element definitions.  A schema component path can be used to
> find a particular component (or set of components) in the context
> of a particular schema; but it can be used to identify any and all
> such potential components out of the context of that particular
> schema.  [This smacks of quantum mechanics, somehow: the
> probabilities collapse when you actually go take the measurement.]
> Yes, this is something of a pun and something of a bit of mess
> ontologically; OTOH, I would argue it is the same messiness we have
> whenever anyone dereferences an namespace URI and gets something
> concrete back.
>

You write
> One way
> to make sense of the abstract concept of the XHTML p element
> is to regard it as the set of all possible specific XHTML p
> element definitions.

Please forgive me if I'm missing the scope of your statement, but what  
would happen if the XHTML p element is defined in another schema language,  
e.g. RELAX NG? As far as I understand the idea of schema component paths,  
they are conceived to be applied for XML Schema. If you really want to add  
"ontological mess", you would need a schema lanuage independent mechanism  
for specifing "the XHTML p element". Btw., the current working draft of  
XHTML 2.0 is at the moment only implemented in RELAX NG ;) .

-- Felix Sasaki