Reuse of the 1999 namespace is potentially misleading/wrong... for XHTML2

Followers of this list may know this subject, since a similar
discussion was raised in the HTML WG. There, it was decided that
reusing the 1999 namespace is part of their design choice. But for
XHTML2, why do you have to reuse it?
In particular, could you point me to the relevant discussion about it?
All I could find on it was before the split and rechartering of HTML
and XHTML working groups, which means that members had other points of
view.

Nowadays, with HTML5 taking the backward compatible part of the web
and all its quirks and annoyances, I think that XHTML2 should start
completely anew, get a new namespace and drop legacy elements
(including <hN>,<a>,<img>).
Doing this, you can avoid all problems that resulted to the too wide
use of HTML by authors not aware of standards, all problems of browser
wars, all problems of broken guides/tutorials, that have created the
mess HTML4/5 currently is, including fake XHTML (and the compatibility
guidelines).

In addition, I think that XHTML should take advantage of XML
namespaces saying that:
- foreign content is allowed everywhere, if it is in a different namespace
- in particular, XForms elements must be in the XForms namespace
- XForms Common attributes can be in XHTML2 elemenst if they're
namespaced (thus allowing to attach XForms repetition and binding to
XHTML2 elements)
- XHTML2 attributes can be in XForms elements if they're namespaced
(for example if you want an image button)
- XMLEvents1/2 attributes must be namespaced also in XHTML2 elements
- XMLEvents1/2 elements must be always namespaced
All of this namespaces are required because they all define ortoghonal
technologies, that fit well the CDF model with elements' and global
attributes' semantic given by its namespace, irrelevant of its parent.

I hope that this will start a positive discussion,

Giovanni

Received on Sunday, 17 May 2009 17:41:37 UTC