Namespaces should be namespace-aware

The Namespaces Recommendation was written such that
namespace declarations must use the xmlns: prefix,
specifically, and that prefix had no defined namespace
associated with it. Members of the NS working group have
admitted that this was a mistake, and approved of the DOM's
choice bind an NS URI to that prefix... but the NS spec
itself is still written such that it's matching on xmlns:
rather than on that namespace. In particular, if you bind
another prefix to the same URI, it can _not_ be used to
declare namespaces.

This really is not a good situation. I think everyone agrees
that the obvious fix is to make xmlns:, like xml:, have a
default and unchangable binding to the proper URI, and to
have namespace declarations recognized by their namespace
rather than by their prefix. But as far as I know, nobody is
actually trying to get this correction made. It's fairly
unlikely to adversely impact any existing documents (they'd
have to have used the same namespace for a different
purpose), so it might be acceptable to simply admit that it
was an erratum.

I'd _REALLY_ like to get this fixed.  Having namespaces be
the one spec whose prefix is not namespace-aware is more
than embarassing -- it complicates coding.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
Joe Kesselman, http://www.lovesong.com/people/keshlam/
Opinions expressed are solely those of the author

Received on Tuesday, 13 November 2001 09:46:56 UTC