Re: Thoughts on namespaces

Several people have suggested using CONCUR syntax for namespace
identification.  I'm opposed to this, because CONCUR has well-defined
meaning which is distinct from that of namespace identification.

<p>This is a book about <(tei)person>Edison</(tei)person>.</p>

In this case, when parsing with respect to the TEI DTD, "Edison" is in
a <person> element.  When parsing with respect to any other DTD, it is
merely part of the content of <p>.

<p>This is a book about <tei:person>Edison</tei:person>.</p>

This example has an element called <tei:person> regardless of what DTD
it's parsed with respect to; and indeed, there is only one DTD for
this XML document.  The identification of <tei:person> as having the
semantics of the <person> element from the TEI DTD is moved to the
level of an application convention.

I'm not saying that colons are the way to go - but I think that
overloading CONCUR in a way incompatible with ISO 8879:1986 is *not*
the way to go.

-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 Friday, 23 May 1997 14:02:13 UTC