Re: layering is consistent and coherent

On Sat, 3 Jun 2000, Al Gilman wrote:
> At 12:38 PM 2000-06-03 -0400, Clark C. Evans wrote:
> >On Sat, 3 Jun 2000, Al Gilman wrote:
> >> Namespaces, per se, don't posess identity.  
> >
> > As I remember, "identity" is the only operation which 
> > the [name space] specifification attempts to define.

To clarify,  I am concerned about the XPath specification *redefinition* 
of the the namespace identity operation by specifically requiring that 
the nsattrib be absolutized before it checked byte-by-byte.  IMHO,
either the absolutization requirement should move from the XPath spec 
into the NS spec, or it should be removed from the XPath spec.  

This example of *layering* is not consistent and coherent.

> Clearly the authors of this specification thought that they were defining a
> namespace, and that this namespace was to be used only under the further
> restrictions that they stated in this document.  [They happen to have given
> a fully-qualified absoluteURI as the text to be used as ns-attr in
> instances conforming to this spec.]
>
> This is a namespace.  It is not best identified as "the XSLT namespace,"
> but rather as "the namespace used in the XSLT language."  Naming markup
> element types and attributes with this namespace commits you to be
> employing not just the namespace, but the XSLT _language_.  This is the
> reality of namespaces today.  They don't come free of connotations.  The
> idea that they do is an artifice of the Recommendation, not a general truth
> about namespaces [in any practical definition of "per se."] or the body of
> extant usage.

The above has nothing to do with my gripe.

Best,

Clark