Re: Uncertainty on xml-dev

>I am forwarding it here as another indication of the effect of this
>debate on the Real World.

I can't blame anyone for being confused. Gods know _we've_ had trouble
keeping track of everything.

However, in the particular instance cited the confusion can be dealt with
relatively easily. The original question was:

>I have a few questions.  If I use the "http:" scheme for
>a namespace name URI, does it not imply that I should be
>using the HyperText Transfer Protocol?  Yes?    Why or why not?

The answer is "No such implication. Even with all the debate going on about
exactly how one refers to a namespace, there is _NO_ inherent statement
that a namespace's identity (which is still generally agreed to be a URI)
should ever be dereferenced. Some higher-level tools may attempt to
retrieve a resource named by the URI, for whatever reasons seem good to
them, but the Namespace spec itself makes no promises that any data will be
available that way, never mind what kind of data that might be. If you're
only concerned about the namespace itself, you never have to go out onto
the network."

> I submit that this is a Bad Thing.

I submit that when you're working in web-years, conflicts will be
discovered after specs and products have been shipped, and that while this
is a Bad Thing it would be worse to leave the conflicts unresolved.

Having said that, I'm not convinced that taking this discussion public has
actually helped us work toward a resolution. Most folks don't want to know
what's in their sausages. But it's been an interesting experment.

At least Tim's latest proposal, Deprecate/Undefined, looks like it might
break the logjam. I need to think about what its implications will be for
the DOM...

______________________________________
Joe Kesselman  / IBM Research

Received on Thursday, 8 June 2000 10:38:16 UTC