Re: Layering XPath/XSLT namespaces is unacceptable

----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Gilman" <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
To: <xml-uri@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: Layering XPath/XSLT namespaces is unacceptable


>
> The InfoSet contains syntactic information as to the literal namespace
> attribute and non-syntactic information concerning the BASE for the
current
> scope.
>
> Are you suggesting that XSLT should be unaware of this information?
>
> "naming" is a semantic construct which is always re[de]fined every
> time you add a layer.  What is it that you feel should be invariant in
> the products of the lower layer(s) in this process?

I'm not following very well ... my concern is that as someone interesting in
storing XML persistently and using XPath to query it, that the binding
between a namespace prefix and its URI, i.e. the "qualified name", be
defined in the same way in XPath and XML.  If XPath is a layer on top of XML
that allows relative URIs that are resolved vis a vis the BASE of the query
that may be different from the BASE of the stored document, it would seem
extremely difficult to implement the queries in a reasonably efficient
manner.  Likewise -- and what motivated my post -- was the realization that
if an XPath implementation if the XML conception of a qname differs from the
XPath conception of a qname, it's hard to imagine how one could really
implement and use these tools effectively.

>
> Warning: we may have an accessibility problem, here.
>
> Locking the standard method of view extraction for presentation [XSLT] to
> being dumb text processing and not schema-aware would not [so far as we
> know yet] comport well with defining document types which transform
> gracefully into the user interface configurations required to support
> people with disabilities.

OK, but I'm not sure how this is affected by my perceived need to keep XML
and XPath/XLST on the same page as far as namespace semantics are concerned.
I'm beginning to feel as though only people with near-genius IQ's will ever
be able to figure out the accessible, internationalized, semantic Web well
enough to actually *use* it, however ... The more we can hold constant --
such as forbidding relative URIs in namespace names throughout the *core* of
the XML spec family -- the more likely this stuff is to be implemented and
used by ordinary mortals.  Can you clarify/simplify the implications of this
that concern you?

Received on Wednesday, 14 June 2000 16:31:53 UTC