Re: Let's get some principles nailed down

Miles Sabin wrote:

> >
> >Every particular namespace is "for" something in particular. XHTML is
> >for hypertext, MathML for mathematics, SVG for scalable graphics, RDF
> >for resource descriptions, etc.
>
>
> That's not what it says in the Namespace REC.

The point of best practice documentation is to go beyond what the RECs 
say. If you can't find an example of a namespace lacking in semantics, 
then it seems true of real world usage, no matter what the REC says.

>
> In any case, what you really want here is documentation of the XHTML,
> MathML, SVG etc. document types. That documentation already has URIs
> ... which aren't the same as their respective namespace identifiers.
>
If you follow these URIs, you _will_ find very relevant documentation:

http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML/
http://www.w3.org/2000/svg
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

RDF, on the other hand, has machine-readable data rather than documentation:

http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns

I am in favour of Tim Bray's proposal to establish a convention of 
providing both. I have not yet seen a namespace that would not benefit 
from human readable documentation as a referent. But I am willing to 
allow for the existence of such a namespace by making the principle a 
SHOULD rather than a MUST.

  Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 18 November 2002 15:14:40 UTC