Re: Can everyone be happy?

Tim Berners-Lee wrote:

> I think you will find that John Cowan and Michael Mealing have been
> doing a good job explaining the URI architecture.

Thanks for the compliment.  I think I understand the URI architecture
fairly well now.  But somehow I can't get past the following definitions
from the Namespace Rec:

*	A namespace name is a URI reference (not a URI, but a URI reference)

*	Namespace names are identical when they are exactly the same,
	character by character.

Like it or not, a document like

	<root xmlns:foo="foo" xmlns:dotfoo="./foo" foo:bar="1" dotfoo:bar="1">

is well-formed and Namespace-compliant, and a general interpreter of XML
(such as the DOM, or in the abstract realm the Infoset) must have a way of
representing it.  Even if you say that this document is deprecated, there
still must be a way of representing deprecated documents too.

> When a subcommunity within the web denegrates, misuses and
> generally abuses though lack of understanding another part of the
> web architecture it unfortunately falls on staff at W3C to try to hold
> the web together.   This is no fun.

No doubt.  But the W3C, most particularly including its Director, passed the
Namespaces Rec in its current form as a W3C Recommendation, and bears responsibility
for its content.

-- 

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 Thursday, 22 June 2000 14:44:20 UTC