Re: stepping backward

Sam Hunting wrote:

> > It is, however, permitted by the XML 1.0 spec, at least in its
> > current incarnation.
> 
> Presumably, since it would be "immoral" (in John Cowan's useful
> formulation) to break existing documents, no future incarnation of XML
> will require namespace qualified names?

Distinguo.

Document authors were put on notice when the XML Rec was issued that the use of
colon was subject to future revision, thus:

# The colon character within XML names is reserved for experimentation
# with name spaces. Its meaning is expected to be standardized at some
# future point [which has now taken place], at which point those documents
# using the colon for experimental purposes may need to be updated.[...]
# In practice, this means that authors should not use the colon in XML
# names except as part of name-space experiments, but that XML processors
# should accept the colon as a name character.

It was on this basis that the Infoset WG (a predecessor to the current
Core WG) decided that documents with non-namespace colon-using names did
not have to have infosets.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)

Received on Friday, 2 June 2000 16:05:34 UTC