- From: Paul Grosso <pgrosso@arbortext.com>
- Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 10:57:51 -0600
- To: www-tag@w3.org
At 16:45 2003 01 24 +0100, Lloyd Rutledge wrote: >After mulling over last week's XLink telephone converence [1], I've >made a summary of issues from the perspective of supporting the option >of remapping link semantics on multiple attributes. Here it is: > >The most important misconception may be that XLink discussion is >between "elementists" and "attributists". Perhaps the groups are >better described as "elementists" and "choicists", or better: >"element-alwaysists" and "remapping-if-and-when-best-ists". .... > I am convinced, as are others, that a remapping >meeting these requirements can be created and should be pursued. > >Before discussing author-based motivations for remapping, here's a >more direct motivation: legacy. All of the HTML, SMIL, etc. documents >currently on the Web, and in any event most of those coming up in the >next year to two, have no XLink elements in them. I have argued that XLink should provide an attribute remapping feature since the beginning of the XLink work, so I have--at least in the past--been very much in agreement with you on much of what you say. However, I think you misunderstand a key point that distinguishes among choices for at least some of us, and this point is one that is pulling me back away from remapping. It is the question I keep phrasing as "how low level is linking?" or put another way, "should the solution to linking be more like XML Base and XInclude (and xml:id) or should it be more like CSS style?" I note that XML Base must be written as xml:base. There are no remapping capabilities. And the legacy of HTML's BASE element was not addressed. XInclude must be written as xi:xinclude (where xi is a namespace prefix mapped to the XInclude namespace). There are no remapping capabilities. And the legacy of XML's external entity references was not addressed. The HTML WG itself has suggested [2] that an xml:id feature be developed. One of the more common forms of this request requires that xml:id be used as is and there would be no remapping capabilities. (Though some proposals do include some remapping features, [2] does not.) The basic xml:id feature as suggested by [2] does not address any legacy use of ids. So if linking--something most of us agree is a very basic, inherent feature of the web--should be more like XML Base and XInclude than like presentation style such color and font-size, then it seems not unreasonable to argue that remapping and legacy issues should be weighed no more heavily that they were in the case of XML Base and XInclude. paul >[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jan/0263.html [2] http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/Group/2002/10/xml-id
Received on Friday, 24 January 2003 12:01:29 UTC