Re: XForms WD 20020821 - 3.2.2 What are linking attributes for?

Andrew Watt:
> > > - which is only allowed a single root element -
> > > then it follows that it is not allowed to embed two documents since
that
> > > would break the "single root element" rule.

Steven Pemberton:
> > Well, your premise is wrong, but even if it had been right your
conclusion
> > would still be wrong, because no one is suggesting embedding two
documents.

Andrew Watt:
> But wasn't the supposed "need" to reference more than one URI a principal
> reason for the XForms WG's abhorrence of XLink?

You are still missing the point.

But let's get a couple of things out of the way. 'Abhorrence' is your word,
not ours. We are using XLink semantic properties, just not its syntactical
expression, since it doesn't meet our needs.

Secondly having more than one URL on an element is not the same as embedding
two documents.

Thirdly, I don't believe I used the word 'need' either, either with or
without double quotes. But the fact that you thought I did is only evidence
that you are not understanding the issue.

Steven Pemberton:
> > You haven't yet got it, I'm afraid. I'm wary of giving concrete examples
> > because I fear you would start arguing the details of the concrete
example
> > rather than seeing it as an expression of the general problem, which is
not
> > solvable except on a case by case basis if you adopt another approach
than
> > ours. I suggest you re-read my earlier mail and try to understand better
> > what I was saying.

Andrew Watt:
> I assume you are referring to
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-forms-editor/2002Aug/0026.html,
the
> full text of which is copied here for ease of reference.

No. I'm referring to
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-forms/2002Aug/0100.html

In particular the section:

<<<<
> Which XForms elements depend on more than one URI being present on an
> element in a host language?

You miss the point. In designing a language for integration with other
languages, you do not know a priori which other languages might use your
language, nor what URIs (or any other data types) they might bring with
them. This is why there is no attribute of type ID in XForms, for instance,
just the requirement that the host language add one to each element. There
is of course a limit to how far you can go with this sort of shielding, but
we want to push that limit out as far as possible.

> In passing, how does bypassing XLink on the XForms
> element affect the presence of zero, one or more URIs on an element in a
> host language?

In the combined language, not the host language. XLink restricts you to one
xlink:xref per element, so we 'give' that to the host language to use as it
sees fit and use another syntactic expression of the URI in XForms. However
we still use the relevant XLink semantic properties to define the meaning.
>>>>

Best wishes,

Steven Pemberton
Co-chair, W3C Forms Working Group

Received on Sunday, 1 September 2002 17:58:02 UTC