Re: Update on namespaces

At 1:56 PM -0500 6/15/97, Joe English wrote:
>On 9 Jun 1997 Jon.Bosak@eng.sun.com (Jon Bosak) wrote:
Many good things, culminating in:


>The above proposal meets all the criteria, I think:
>(1) it universally disambiguates namespaces (via FPIs);
>(2) it provides for separate formal and informal specifications;
>(3) it allows, but does not require, structural constraints
>to be expressed; (4) it supports multiple inheritance; and
>(5) it adds no new syntax to XML-LANG.
>
>And, it's compatible with XML-LINK's link recognition mechanism
>(part 2, section 2), and is virtually identical to the core
>parts of SGML's architectural forms mechanism [*].


My proposal (mostly identical, except that I left syntax inheritance out)
was ignored, but you should pay attention to at least _one_ of us... Joe's
proposal looks reasonable at first perusal.

The ERB seems to have had some discussion of requirements for namespaces.
It is hard for those of us in the interest group to really address these
requirements since they have not been explicitly shared -- at least not any
that require a new language mechanism. The only visible requirement is the
need to associate semanticsfrom different standards to elements of new DTDs
(or WF-only documents). Since AFs answer that need, the silence on this
topic is puzzling. Perhaps everyone simply agrees and that's why there's
been no more discussion?

We still have a proposed extension (namespaces) to address a solved problem
(AFs attach DTD-independent semantics to elements already). There may be
additional drop-dead requirements that make forging ahead into the unknown
necessary, but before we standardize on something new and untested, maybe
we should have a clearer argument.

Sorry for being grumpy, but I really don't get it...

  -- David

>--Joe English
>
>  jenglish@crl.com
>
>[*] The AFDR uses a different mechanism for locating meta-DTDs,
>has several additional features (mostly having to do with attribute
>renaming), and uses the term "architecture" instead of "namespace";
>other than that the AFDR is substantially the same as what's proposed
>above.


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David Durand              dgd@cs.bu.edu  \  david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Boston University Computer Science        \  Sr. Analyst
http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/   \  Dynamic Diagrams
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Received on Sunday, 15 June 1997 21:08:13 UTC