Re: [BULK] - Re: [XHTML2] Spirit of "1.1.3. XHTML 2 and Presentation" (PR#7759)

Paul Mitchell schreef:
> XML, being a UNICODE protocol

XML is not required to be Unicode, it’s just the default (and, I 
suppose, recommended) encoding. However, ISO-8859-1 (or win1252) is just 
as common.

> allows element names to be in any human language. For any element name 
> to have a truly "generic" meaning, it should have transliterative 
> synonyms in the *same namespace* for non-English users at least, and 
> literal synonyms for all language users. 

I think that’s taking it a bit too far. In principle it doesn’t matter 
what the element is called. However, when its name is a sensible English 
word, it will make it easier for people to remember, and to minimise the 
misuse of the element it’s best if the name is as descriptive as possible.

However, for all I care xml:style could be called xml:qfsdz, either 
would make equally much sense to a Chinese person who doesn’t understand 
English, and even though he may not understand the meaning of the words, 
he is perfectly capable of writing HTML (there’s something to be said 
for short abbreviated names). So I’m sure I’ll manage.

With that I want to illustrate that in the end it doesn’t really matter 
(not that a Chinese version of the tag should be invented :)). However, 
if a sensible name is chosen, it must be a proper one, to avoid misuse 
or implicit limiting the scope (like e.g. the HTML <script> tag seems to 
exclude C++, but why should it).

On the other hand, if a behavioural tag is to be included in XML, why 
not do it properly and use a dialect of XBL and such. It’s not as if 
it’s more effort to implement (after all ‘just’ JS and the DOM aren’t 
trivial to implement either), might as well do it right then. Also, I 
doubt it will be implemented outside web browsers, so it would probably 
not warrant a generic element for it.

Given what I just said, I don’t think introducing <xml:script> is a good 
idea. Better just use XBL, then. With regard to <xml:style>, a 
processing instruction may be better (or it may not).


~Grauw

-- 
Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laurens Holst, student, university of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Website: www.grauw.nl. Backbase employee; www.backbase.com.

Received on Friday, 24 February 2006 20:37:30 UTC