Re: CURIEs, xmlns and bandwidth

/ Misha Wolf <Misha.Wolf@reuters.com> was heard to say:
| Henry wrote:
|
|> 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.
|
| Thanks.
|
|> 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.
|
| In our view, the fact that the semantics of our {scheme, code} 
| pairs are the same as the semantics of QNames justifies our use of 
| the same syntax.

I beg to differ. They aren't the same. The semantics of a QName are
that you find the associated prefix in the in-scope namespaces and
associate that URI with the local-name to form the (uri,local-name)
pair.

You're (if I understand, which maybe I don't) proposing that instead
of getting the prefix binding from the in-scope namespaces, you look
somewhere else.

So the potential exists that in this example:

  <myvocab pointer="x:foo" xmlns:x="http://example.org/">
    <h:div someAttribute="x:foo"/>
  </myvocab>

the x:foo string in someAttribute might expand to a (uri,local-name)
pair *other than* (http://example.org/,foo)?

That just seems terribly confusing.

I think it's risky at best to introduce this conceptually alternate
mechanism for associating URIs with short strings. I think it's just
plain wrong to overload the existing prefix:local-name lexical form
for these alternate short strings if they can occur in contexts where
a QName might appear.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM / XML Standards Architect / Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended
recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by
reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.