Re: Language = Namespace. was: How namespace names might be used

> In my model, XHTML 1.0 strict, XHTML 1.0 transitional, XHTML 1.0 frameset"
> are each languages.   There is another language, XHTML 1.0, of which they
> are all sublanguages

sublanguages in a  language or languages in a family of languages

without defining terms, it's quite likely that this is agreement but
with just different terminology.

But to use something a bit less vague than "language" schema (dtd)
define grammars (of various sorts) and there are three differnt
grammars for XHTML 1.0 and lots of grammars from XHTML Modularisation
and they all define languages (or sub languages) in the same
namespace. Whether you call them languages or sub languages isn't
really the point, the point is there is no mapping from the namespace
name to any particular one. Which means if you are only given the
xhtml namespace name you can do some things (like set a p as a
paragraph) but you can't in general schema validate.

> That doesn't mean that another language definition can't give a permanent
> namespace URI for a frozen version of the language.   That might lead to
> less confusion in the future.

It would be a bad idea, for all the reasons that having 3 namespaces
for xhtml 1.0 was a bad idea. Changing the namespace name means
changing _all_ the effective element names in the language.
It breaks all xpath queries into documents (and any other namespace
aware use of the documents)

So effectively you produce a completely new language with zero back
compatibility.  Now of course sometimes you want to do that, but not
often.  Having code that knows <p> is a paragraph survive from one
version of (x)html to the next is rather useful.

> >Many (related) languages, all using elements from the same namespace,
>Many langages related by being sublanguages of the same language.

as I say this is just tinkering with definitions that neither of us
have specified, so we may well be agreeing (but speaking a different
language:-)

me>well in that case it had better reference...

> Why?

I think I was tired. It is possible that I meant to make some sensible
point, but whatever I wrote wasn't it.


David

Received on Wednesday, 21 June 2000 18:38:59 UTC