Re: Near final draft of TAG finding on the Self-Describing Web (Self-describing XML Documents)

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org> wrote:
> I asked the question as point-blank-ly as I could
> manage in Nov 2006 ...
>
> follow your nose from XML documents to namespace documents?
> xmlFunctions-34, nsMediaType-3, RDFinXHTML-35
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2006Nov/0086.html
>
> ... but I didn't manage to solicit a response; I suppose
> I could have written to the xml-types list.

Sorry for missing that.

>> > "An XML document labeled as text/xml or application/xml might contain
>> > namespace declarations, stylesheet-linking processing instructions (PIs),
>> > schema information, or other declarations that might be used to suggest
>> > how the document is to be processed.  For example, a document might have
>> > the XHTML namespace and a reference to a CSS stylesheet.  Such a document
>> > might be handled by applications that would use this information to
>> > dispatch the document for appropriate processing."
>>
>> Right.  That's a paragraph that Larry and I worked on together in
>> response to my raising exactly this issue.  It wasn't as clear as I
>> would have liked, but it's all we could agree upon.  Its intent, from
>> my POV, was to serve as a warning - through the use of the word
>> "might" - to those who might assume that publishing an XML document as
>> application/xml would necessarily be interpreted the same way as if
>> the format-specific media type were used.
>
> OK, well, the intent fades over time, and the text remains, right?
> Perhaps the text admits multiple readings, but one of them
> is that consumers MAY dispatch on namespace.

Definitely, because I agree that's what it says.  But saying that some
agents may behave in some way is not the same as prescribing a
protocol, which seems to me is what is required in order for the
finding to make the claim it does.

Mark.

Received on Monday, 19 January 2009 17:46:02 UTC