Re: Let's get some principles nailed down

Miles Sabin wrote:

> Tim Bray wrote,
>
> >CP4. XML-based languages MUST be given a namespace name and the
> >elements of the language MUST be placed in that namespace.  Designers
> >SHOULD make available a representation of the namespace which is
> >human-readable and SHOULD make available a representation which is a
> >machine-readable directory of resources which are related to that
> >namesapce.
>
>
> You want to deprecate XML 1.0 w/o namespaces? Even assuming that was
> desirable, is it possible?
>
> As to human-readable representations and related resources: there are
> some of us who still think that a namespace is ... err ... just a space
> for names, with no semantic significance beyond that. So I can only buy
> the second part as a MAY.


An XML namespace is just a set of names. According to the abstract model 
they have no semantic significance beyond that. By analogy, a function 
in a programming language is just a unit of code that takes inputs and 
generates outputs. Nevertheless, one SHOULD document functions in a 
programming language and SHOULD document one's namespaces. I see no 
contradiction between the acknowledgment that they have a very limited 
set of built-in semantics and the recognition that they typically 
represent a vocabulary with documentation.

  Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 18 November 2002 10:00:37 UTC