Re: Attribute uniqueness test: a radical proposal

At 04:16 PM 6/14/00 -0400, Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>It is like having a standard trailer hitch on the back of 
>the car, but adding an ingenious device which protrudes 
>backwards to prevent the trailer from being a boat trailer,
>on the basis that the chance of wanting to tow a boat 
>is < 10%!

Please pardon me for pushing this comparison further, but I've towed a few
trailers and I'm currently looking at pickup trucks of various sizes.

Incorporating the full URI spec by reference is powerful, but it does much
more than Namespaces in XML needs.  Restricting the URI spec to something
smaller lets us get away with a _much_ smaller hitch and avoids
complicating that hitch.

Hitches come in different sizes.  The 'full URI hitch' is a lot larger than
the 'literal hitch'.  It makes plenty of sense to me to use the smaller
hitch, and to design the connections so that you can't overload that hitch
with a connection meant for the larger version.  

No device needed - just place the ball for the hitch at the correct
position so that only the right size hitch can be used. (Look at the back
plate on some pickup truck, used for light-duty hitches, to get an idea of
how this would work.)

I'm concerned that right now we're trying to use a Saturn to tow a
semi-trailer.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

Received on Wednesday, 14 June 2000 17:00:01 UTC