Re: Update on namespaces

[Paul Grosso]
> At 15:23 1997 06 18 -0500, David G. Durand wrote:
> >Namespaces were a proposed solution to the requirement to attach
> >semantics to elements in a DTD-independent way.
> 
> If this is true, then I'm on the wrong wave length.
> 
> I do not see namespaces as attaching semantics to elements, but only
> as a way to uniquify otherwise non-unique names.  This, for me, is
> the XML-namespace issue.  Attaching semantics is either the
> XML-style or XML-datatyping or XML-link or whatever issue.  Let's
> keep orthogonal issues as separate as possible.

This is exactly what "namespaces" (however poorly chosen a name) are
for.  In Andrew Layman's original example, I may need a book name from
a bibliographic DTD, a price from a financial DTD, and a digital
signature from the DSIGS DTD.  The namespace declaration, whatever
form it takes, is a way of signalling to the user agent that some
previously known semantics can be associated with certain elements.

Whether or not this is a good idea, is certainly open to debate.

-Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden                  One Richmond Square
DynaText SIT Technical Support        Providence, RI 02906 USA
Inso Corporation                      +1.401.421.9550 (voice)
Electronic Publishing Solutions       +1.401.521.2030 (facsimile)

Received on Wednesday, 18 June 1997 15:49:22 UTC