Re: Fine-tuning CURIEs (reply #2 :-)

Hi Ivan,

> Just a related note, thanks to Shane for being very precise below. We
> should be careful _not_ to use the term 'namespace' in neither of the
> two documents, but rather 'prefix'. We could get shot at and possible
> burnt alive if we are not careful:-)

We put a lot of time and energy into making that the case, so if there
is any doubt about our intentions, it's a bit worrying!

In the CURIE work we have proposed--and use--the term 'URI mappings'.
We went in this direction quite a while ago. In XHTML we happen to get
our 'URI mappings' via the namespace attribute, but there is no reason
we could not also use other syntax in the future, since we only need
map name and a URI. That's the beauty of removing the dependency on
QNames.

For example, I'm convinced there's some way of making something like this work:

  <html xmlns:rdfap="http://www.w3.org/ns/rdfa/mapping/">
    <head>
      <link rel="rdfap:foaf" href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" />
    </head>
    .
    .
    .

This could set the initial mappings used by the parser, and they could
effectively be in play for the whole document.

Don't shoot me down...I'm not proposing it for now. I'm simply saying
that the relevant sections of the syntax have already been
specifically constructed so as to decouple the 'URI mappings' from the
syntax used to obtain those mappings--it could be XML namespaces as we
have now, but in the future it could be something like I've described
here, or it could be the mechanism used in eRDF. It could even be a
further document that loads a set of default prefixes...and since the
key is that they are 'URI mappings' rather than 'namespaces', one or
more of these techniques could be used at the same time, without a
problem, .

So you are right that we shouldn't use the term 'namespace', and
anywhere that we do is hopefully just an editing mistake.

Regards,

Mark

-- 
  Mark Birbeck, formsPlayer

  mark.birbeck@formsPlayer.com | +44 (0) 20 7689 9232
  http://www.formsPlayer.com | http://internet-apps.blogspot.com

  standards. innovation.

Received on Friday, 14 September 2007 08:53:01 UTC