RE: How namespace names might be used

At 02:38 PM 6/12/00 -0400, keshlam@us.ibm.com wrote:
>I'm still not sure that URIs themselves are a good choice for namespace
>identity. 

I think a lot of the argument for using URIs/URI References as namespace
identifiers is to reuse the URI infrastructures, and that's what seems to
keep carrying us back into the dereferencing debate.

Unless some key participants are willing to make a strong statement that
namespaces are _only_ about identification, I suspect we'll keep plunging
into topics you'd rather avoid.

>I _am_ pretty sure that making a relative reference to that
>identity is a Bad Idea and should be discouraged or (preferably) forbidden
>until and unless someone comes up with a really compelling use case that
>gets us all to agree on what this is supposed to mean.

I haven't seen any compelling use cases personally, and I've come to the
conclusion that warning labels are all that we really need here.  

Let the spec stand as it is - strings that contain URI references - and
scream loudly that "relative URI references may get you into trouble!"
Applications and documents may proceed from there, informed by the
namespace identifiers and any context they may or may not have regarding
base URIs.

Now if only we could harness the energy of the spinning going on here...

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
Building XML Applications
Inside XML DTDs: Scientific and Technical
Cookies / Sharing Bandwidth
http://www.simonstl.com

Received on Monday, 12 June 2000 14:49:50 UTC