RE: Semi-transparent Syntax Extensions (was Re: SD5 - Namespaces)

Arjun Ray writes:

"FWIW, I would prefer a way to indicate namespaces via attribute
trickery,
because down the road I can see somebody discovering the need to
accomodate name-sharing across name-spaces and thus a way to specify
more
than one name-space as "simultaneously active". The CONCUR syntax allows
this, as does Eliot's suggestion to use architectures (if I've
understood
that correctly), but a construction like 'name-space:gi' doesn't."

I think that what I had in mind is orthagonal to CONCUR.  As I
understand it, CONCUR asserts that an element is not only of one type,
but is actually of several types which it then proceeds to list by
naming the several types.  Each name comes from some namespace.
Presently these names are not qualified to their namespaces; if we used
qualification they could be.

Similarly, I think, unless I am missing something, that namespaces are
very different from architectures.  Architectures give us a form of
inheritance.  However, even if the element's meaning is expressed in
terms of inheritance, each element's name is still relative to some
namespace. Knowing which space is a necessary first step in
understanding the element.


--Andrew Layman
   AndrewL@microsoft.com

Received on Friday, 23 May 1997 14:29:05 UTC