Re: red/green XML

>I agree that that is a huge problem with XBase.
>(Has anyone made that comment formally?)

The DOM WG raised a concern about the interaction of XBase and relative
namespaces when we were asked to review the XBase proposal. Since the DOM
Level 2 design assumed the Literal interpretation, our belief was that
XBase should not affect Namespaces.

But if validity can be defined in terms of absolutized relative references,
as the Absolutize proposal suggests, that means validity is affected by
XBase. Note that a relative pointer to the schema (however that pointer is
associated with the document) might experience the same effect, so I'm not
sure this is new breakage.

A relative reference points to a family of resources, with the individual
member of the family selected relative to the base URI. If that isn't an
acceptable behavior, you shouldn't be using relative in the first place. If
some folks still feel it _is_ acceptable -- and required? -- behavior, then
we have to decide whether it is actively supported (Absolutize) or
passively tolerated (Literal).


We still come back to the same basic questions: Do we change namespaces to
forbid relative syntax (and declare that a group of previously well-formed
documents are now ill-formed), do we change them to absolutize (and declare
that a group of previously valid documents are now invalid), or do we drop
the requirement to absolutize (and declare that these aren't URI References
even though they use URIRef syntax).

I can see arguments for all three. I think my personal preference would
still be Forbid, Literal, Absolutize in that order, but the space between
them has closed somewhat. And I reserve the right to reconsider.

______________________________________
Joe Kesselman  / IBM Research

Received on Tuesday, 6 June 2000 10:44:07 UTC