Re: Last call comments for Namespaces in XML 1.1

Steven Pemberton wrote:
> I long misunderstood the Namespaces in XML specification. When I finally
> understood it, I discovered that many other people misunderstood it too.
> Since then I have had to explain it to many people, and therefore many of my
> comments below address ways of making the meaning clearer.

I tend to agree with a lot of Steve's comments but suspect that a lot of 
them will be ruled out of scope for this 1.1 rev.  I'm not on the WG but 
seem to recall some dialog on this somewhere.

However, one is really worth underlining.

> "[Definition: An XML namespace is a collection of names, identified by an
> IRI reference, which are used in XML documents as element types and
> attribute names. ]"
> 
> This is a major source of confusion, because an XML namespace is *not* "a
> collection of names" by any definition of "collection" that I know.

Indeed, I wrote that sentence in haste or stupidity or something and at 
any point in the editorial process if someone with sharp eyes had said 
"er, wrong", I'm sure we would have fixed it, I'm amazed that it got 
through.

In my own skunkworks stripped-down vision of what XML V.next ought to 
look like at http://www.textuality.com/xml/xmlSW.html I also rework this 
introduction, see sect. 2.2, it's simpler than Steven's version and I 
think says what implementers need to here. -Tim

Received on Wednesday, 18 September 2002 15:34:59 UTC