[xforms11] namespaces

I have a couple of questions/concerns about the new draft with regard to
namespaces. First, XForms 1.1 introduces a new namespace. Other
specifications have not done so for minor corrections. For example XHTML
1.1, SVG 1.1 and SVG 1.2.

I'm not sure if namespaces should be used as version identifiers, but I
do not have very strong feelings about it. It would be nice though if
there was some consistency and a plan for implementers. Especially the
latter would be important, how should a UA treat all those new elements?
Identical to previous elements. Should the new features only be
supported in the new namespace. There are a lot of questions that can be
raised against this model, but I think this is more a general problem.
It should be solved before XForms 1.1 becomes LC though.

Another problem is the near-null namespace XForms 1.1 is introducing. It
seems this is being done so XHTML 2.0 seems a bit easier to author (it
is not) so people will not have to worry about namespaces. While this
seems to be a nice idea in practice it might become a huge problem.
(Also note that people can not author XHTML 1.x now.)

Again I think that this is difficult to implement, especially for UAs
that handle non-valid well-formed documents which all do. Also, what if
XForms 1.4 introduces a backwards incompatible change and gets a new
namespace just like XForms 1.1, but also gets the nearly-null namespace
so it can be embedded in XHTML 2.0. That just sounds so broken I think
the nearly-null namespace should be taken out and shot or it should be
defined in such a forward compatible way that it is completely solid.


-- 
  Anne van Kesteren
  <http://annevankesteren.nl/>

Received on Wednesday, 2 March 2005 22:11:01 UTC