- From: Jason Diamond <jason@injektilo.org>
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 08:43:59 -0800
- To: "Patrick Stickler" <patrick.stickler@nokia.com>, "ext Tim Bray" <tbray@textuality.com>, <www-tag@w3.org>
> namespace == punctuation > > A namespace is nothing more than punctuation. It prevents > local names from colliding in a context of global syndication > of names. > > One cannot presume nor assert that a namespace denotes anything; > not a vocabulary, not a doctype, not a web resource. Once used > as a namespace, that URI ceases to have interpretation as a URI. With my students, I use the analogy that a element's namespace name is like a person's last name. If I refer to the person (or element) with nothing but the name Patrick, then that's fairly ambiguous. To differentiate you from all the other Patricks in the world, I would qualify you with the last name (namespace name) of Stickler. Obviously, we have name collisions in the real world but the analogy is close enough that most people get it. Does your family have a RDDL document? ;-) Jason
Received on Wednesday, 6 February 2002 11:43:45 UTC