Re: XML namespaces on the Web

>> >Nothing prevents browsers from doing so today.
>> 
>> The XML spec does, last I checked...
> 
> The XML spec doesn't constrain software that makes no claim of conformance
> to it, so that objection is merely technical.
That interpretation would indicate a catastrophic flaw in the XML spec. At various levels of the OSI model standards define what's conforming and some means of error detection (if only by conformance being an observable (decidable in higher layers) property) and possibly error correction (ubiquitous in lower layers). But procedures for error correction are carefully specified (although some leeway may be left when nothing critical is jeopardized). It's more reasonable to assume that XML has no error correction (the processor MUST catch fire on incorrect input, and it cannot be freely considered just a part of the application (browser) which falls back to error correction) than that it has error correction which is completely unspecified. Remember that we're talking about specifying behaviour for arbitrary strings.

> If XML has an advantage,
> it's that it's simple and precise.  On the other hand, it is neither
> concise nor forgiving; for that, browsers have HTML.  What's the point
> of blurring the line?
Because that's the whole idea of XHTML. And despite disservice from two directions,  it's a very good one, which I'm one of the apparently few people to consistently try to save in these unpeaceful times. Pursuing a Web without some form of HTML (XHTML2, HTML5, HTML 2.0…) is nowadays neither practical nor desirable, don't you agree?
Well, maybe that's not blurring but rather realising that the line doesn't lie between XML and HTML. It lies between XML and tag soup. My proposal attempts to reconcile the reality (current practice and people's needs and habits (probably even their nature) leading to future practices) with the requirement not to blur the latter (as that would indeed put us several years back).

Best regards,

Krzysztof Maczyński

Received on Tuesday, 17 November 2009 21:10:45 UTC