Re: Can everyone be happy?

>> And I remain _extremely_ unconvinced that premitting relative references
to
>> namespace names is desirable
>
>It depends on where you think namespaces in practice are going to come
>from:
>* Only a few sites like http://www.w3.org will produce namespaces
>* Everybody will produce their own namespaces
>
>In the former case, relative URIs will be really rare

We agree.

>, in the latter really common.

We emphatically do NOT agree. As has been discussed repeatedly, there seems
to be little or no advantage to using a relative reference to the namespace
identity. There are certainly potential advantages to having the _next_
level of binding -- from the namespace identity to the semantics you wish
to apply to it -- be aware of the context in which you are manipulating the
document. But having the basic identity of the element or attribute change
when it's viewed locally rather than remotely is much more likely to
introduce breakage than it is to confer benefits.

Relative URI references are a fine thing when you Really Want an operation
to be context dependent. Identity should not be context dependent.

>One thing that I am sure about is that if the latter case is going to be
>the common case then people are going to use relative URIs regardless -
>otherwise they can't do what they want to do.

I still have not seen a use case where they "can't do what they want to do"
if we forbid relative references to namespace identity. The examples which
really _need_ relative all focus on that next step of going from identity
to metadata -- and are well served by either explicit bindings from
namespace to a _seperate_ relative URI, or by using a catalog to perform
that mapping, and I expect other mechanisms are also possible.

Received on Thursday, 22 June 2000 15:00:48 UTC