Re: two failings of XLink

Norman Walsh wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>...

> |
> |   "A hypertext reference is a reference that, on traversal, should
> |    result in the referenced resource being presented to the user."
> 
> That's what I meant. In fact, I thought that was what I said.

What software needs to make this distinction? A browser will display 
data if it can. A link checker will validate a link whether the 
information is "displayable" or not. So why make the distinction?

>...
> I don't believe there are any semantics that hold unconditionally for
> every application that might process a document. Editors, in
> particular, often treat documents in totally different ways than the
> processing expectations of a particular vocabulary might lead you to
> expect.

This suggests to me that distinctions based on "expected processing" are 
not very useful or helpful and arguably go against the XML philosophy 
that the data receiver decides what to do with the data, not the data 
producer.

>...
> I think I agree with you, though I might change the stress a bit. I
> agree that presentational languages should use XLink for those
> elements that have a presentational semantic. Languages that don't
> have a presentational semantic, or those elements that don't have a
> presentational semantic, might or might not be good candidates for
> XLink. I'm not prepared to say that they never are, only that they
> might not be.

When would they not be and why?

  Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 30 September 2002 14:17:03 UTC