Re: import / include issue

Wow, so much traffic on this topic .. I'm not sure where to start! ;-)

Let me give my current preferred positions for these two issues:

Yes, definitely clarify the existing import mechanism and explain
it very carefully. 

No, do not add an <include> mechanism. There are several XML level
mechanisms for inclusion (entities, XInclude and others I probably
don't know about) already. Furthermore, most programming languages
have survived quite well with only one include/import mechanism
(Java, C++, C#, C, ...) and hence I don't see the need to have two
mechanisms in WSDL.

Sanjiva.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sanjiva Weerawarana" <sanjiva@watson.ibm.com>
To: "WS-Desc WG (Public)" <www-ws-desc@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 7:35 PM
Subject: import / include issue


> Now that the other issues seem to have died down, I'd like to start
> on the following two issues:
> 
> <issue id="issue-clarify-import">
>   <head>Clarify semantics of import.</head>
>   We have run into many, many people who appear to be confused 
>   about how import is supposed to work. The notion that it only
>   establishes a relationship between a namespace and a location
>   is quite hard to grasp it appears. Specifically, the fact that
>   nothing is said about what one may find about the namespace at
>   that location appears to be very confusing. We need to clarify
>   the intended semantics at the minimum.
>   <source>Sanjiva Weerawarana</source>
> </issue>
> 
> <issue id="issue-add-include">
>   <head>Should we add an "include" mechanism?</head>
>   It appears that most users who use &lt;import&gt; really
>   treat it as an include mechanism. Should we bite the bullet
>   and have both import and include mechanisms similar to XSLT?
>   <source>Sanjiva Weerawarana</source>
> </issue>
> 
> Please provide your input on how these should be resolved!
> 
> Sanjiva.

Received on Wednesday, 1 May 2002 15:16:30 UTC