Re: Why not XHTML+RDF? was Re: Links are links

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/ Jeni Tennison <jeni@jenitennison.com> was heard to say:
|> So stand-off markup is a requirement in your view. No global
|> attribute names, no namespaced element names, only something that
|> puts all of the link descriptions "out of line".
|>
|> Others have the view that links are sufficiently fundamental that
|> they should be inline, recognizable in the surface syntax without a
|> specific schema or other external description.
|
| Very succinctly put. I think that both of these points of view are
| valid for users with different requirements, in just the same way as
| CSS and XSL-FO meet different requirements. XLink meets the
| requirements of the second group of users. What's wrong with *also*
| having something that meets the requirements of the first? Why does
| this have to be an either/or thing?

It doesn't *have* to be, technically. Actually, I've lost all hope
that it will be. But there are engineering and human factors costs
associated with having multiple different ways to do the same thing.
Generally, it's better not to do that.

Before someone jumps in here and says "but they're not the same
thing", let me just say that (1) I'm not really convinced but (2) I am
convinced that you're no more convinced that they are the same than I
am that they are different and (3) for social as well as technical
reasons, I'm ready to give up.

I surrender all hopes and aspirations for a common linking vocabulary
as I conceived it. Perhaps my conceptions will change over time, but I
think a more realistic outcome is that (1) HLink will be no more
widely deployed in the future than XLink is today and (2) the fact
that XHTML, *the* hypertext vocabulary for the web, isn't going to use
XLink kills it. Dead. Finito. The proverbial cherubic soprano has
begun her song.

But that's just an opinion.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

- -- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM    | Are you not the future of all the memories
XML Standards Architect | stored within you? The future of the
Sun Microsystems, Inc.  | past?--Valéry
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Received on Thursday, 3 October 2002 13:31:43 UTC