Re: Irony heaped on irony

On 20-05-2000, 21:48:51, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org> wrote regarding 
Re: Irony heaped on irony:
> Lest you should argue that this doesn't apply to markup
> languages like XHTML, consider the case of a document
> that depends on the XHTML version 6.3 "dwim" element...
> the author checks the spec in 2003, and sure enough, dwim
> is in the XHTML namespace. Then he ships his document
> to a system WizDoc that claimed, way back in 2001, to
> support the XHTML namespace. But WizDoc doesn't support
> dwim. So the author has to label his document ala
> "requires support for version 6.3 of the XHTML namespace"
> using an ad-hoc labelling mechanism that works only
> with a human in the loop.

If the XHTML 6.3 document includes <p>, <a>, <em>, <h1>, and <dwim>, how 
should it be labeled?  The first four element types mean what they did in 
XHTML 1.0, but the last was introduced in 6.3.  Should the document 
include multiple namespaces, with <xh-1.0:p> and <xh-6.3:dwim> (and 
possibly many more namespaces for elements introduced in intervening 
versions)?  Or should it label all of the HTML elements as coming from 
XHTML 6.3, so that the WizDoc will reject the entire document?  I believe 
that the namespace name should only change if the meaning of 
already-defined element types changes in a non-backward-compatible way, 
not when new element types are added.

-Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden, Solutions Architect
Yomu: <URL:http://www.yomu.com/>
One Embarcadero Center, Ste. 2405
San Francisco, CA 94111

Received on Monday, 22 May 2000 03:15:24 UTC