Re: [XBL] XBL 2.0 subtree or XML Fragment body

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 karl@w3.org wrote:
>
> About http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xbl-20060907/#terminology
>
> In the terminology of XML Fragment, an "XBL subtree" is defined as 
> "fragment body" [...]
> 
> What about saying: An XBL subtree is a fragment body in an XML 
> documentâ

It isn't clear to me that this would be beneficial to the readers of the 
XBL specification. The XML Fragment specification is not a widely read one 
amongst the target audience of the XBL spec, so terms from that 
specification should probably not be assumed to be well understood.

Also, the term "subtree" is well-understood in computer science, and the 
key part of the definition of "XBL subtree" is the root of the subtree 
being an <xbl> element, it isn't the "subtree" part (which is the only 
part of the definition that would change if we used "fragment body" 
instead).

Finally, the term you cite from the XML Fragment specification is defined 
in terms of the lexical representation of an XML document, whereas in XBL 
there might never actually be a lexical representation -- an XBL subtree 
can exist purely in the form of a DOM tree constructed using DOM methods. 
Therefore the vaguer definition as currently given is actually more 
accurate in the context of XBL.

In conclusion, I do not feel your proposal would be a good one, and have 
therefore not made any change to the specification. However, if you 
disagree, please let me know, so that your disagreement can be clearly 
marked in the disposition of comments.

Cheers,
-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'