Re: CURIEs, xmlns and bandwidth

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I took the opportunity of there being an XML Core WG telcon this
afternoon to summarize the state of this thread and your
concerns/requirements.

The XML Core WG asked me to share with you our concern that using
QName syntax for something which is not a QName, in a context where a
QName might well appear, would be a very misleading and confusing
thing to do.  We strongly urge you _either_ to use a different syntax,
_or_ to use real QNames.

Speaking personally, I wonder if you've really exhausted the design
space wrt making QNames meet your requirements.  Perhaps you have, but
I offer the following observations:

 1) It's a least a _little_ bit odd to think of numerals as being
    symbols appropriate for namespace qualification.  It feels quite
    different to say "in my namespace, 'title' means ... and is used
    for ..." as opposed to "in my namespace '1105' means ... and is
    used for ...".

 2) Namespace declarations _can_ be packaged up and stored in a
    document for reference and re-use in XML documents, using
    parameter entities:

bindings.ent:

  <!ATTLIST news:item
    xmlns:news CDATA #FIXED "???"
    xmlns:dsig CDATA #FIXED "http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"
    xmlns:nc CDATA #FIXED "http://www.iptc.org/NewsCodes#"
    xmlns:rtr CDATA #FIXED "http://www.reuters.com/NewsCodes#"
    xmlns:lang CDATA #FIXED "http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/bcp/bcp47.txt#"
    xmlns:curr CDATA #FIXED "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217#">

xmplItem.xml:

    <!DOCTYPE news:item [
       <!ENTITY % ATTLIST SYSTEM ".../bindings.ent">
       %ATTLIST;
    ]>
    <news:item>
      <dsig:Signature/>
      <itemMeta>
        ...
      </itemMeta>
      <contentMeta>
        <created>2005-10-23T12:34:56Z</created>
        ...
        <subject code="curr:JPY"/>
      </contentMeta>
      . . .
    </news:item>

If you want to _really_ pennypinch on bandwidth, you can publish a
'widely known' URI for popular ATTLIST files and processors don't even
have to download them, they can have their values 'built in'.

ht
- -- 
 Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
                     Half-time member of W3C Team
    2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
            Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                   URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFDaQn9kjnJixAXWBoRAo0rAJ0QpVqSbQJMfnjUTOPAitWY13chewCeK3Y1
WouaJaGIAN/98nmwDSwJjsk=
=vtwp
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Received on Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:48:40 UTC