RE: CURIEs: A proposal

Hi Steven,

> Misha's proposal is at the moment just that: a proposal; I have 
> some sympathy for the ability to define separate methods for
> concatenating the prefix and suffix of a CURIE (the XHTML 
> namespace, like so many, doesn't end in a slash or a hash, and so 
> using QNames I would have to learn to live with 
> http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtmlindex for the 'index' rel rather than 
> http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/index or 
> http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml#index), however, I currently prefer
> the simplicity of just using concatenation.

It is not the case that XML Namespaces dictates a particular method 
for building the IRI corresponding to an item in a namsepace.  
Indeed, XML Namespaces does not require that any such method exists.

I quote from Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One, 
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-webarch-20041215/

   4.5.3. XML namespaces
   
   The purpose of an XML namespace (defined in [XMLNS]) is to allow 
   the deployment of XML vocabularies (in which element and attribute
   names are defined) in a global environment and to reduce the risk 
   of name collisions in a given document when vocabularies are 
   combined. For example, the MathML and SVG specifications both 
   define the set element. [...]

   The use of URIs confers additional benefits. First, each URI/local
   name pair can be mapped to another URI, grounding the terms of the
   vocabulary in the Web. These terms may be important resources and 
   thus it is appropriate to be able to associate URIs with them.

   [RDFXML] uses simple concatenation of the namespace URI and the 
   local name to create a URI for the identified term. Other mappings
   are likely to be more suitable for hierarchical namespaces; see 
   the related TAG issue abstractComponentRefs-37.

An interesting TAG discussion is minuted at:

   TAG in Edinburgh 21 Sep 2005 
   Issue abstractComponentRefs-37
   http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2005/09/21-tagmem-minutes.html

Consequently, if the eventual CURIE spec mandates a particular
construction method, it will cause XML Namespace QNames to not be a 
subset of CURIEs.  I would consider such a choice to be a serious 
mistake.

Misha
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Received on Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:28:57 UTC