Re: Can everyone be happy?

Apologies if this note is strongly worded, but I found that I 
couldn't help but reply.

On the evidence below, I would say that those of use who have 
carefully explained the "pure identifier" position are the ones who 
have been misunderstood. I am quite confident, after many go-rounds 
with Dan Connoplly that I understand exactly what he wants. I believe 
that he's wrong in his beliefs about the internal consistency of the 
namespace spec as it stands, and I believe that he does not share my 
rating of the relative importances of URI dereferencing for 
namespaces, and unique identification of namespaces.

Disagreement does not mean that we have failed to understand, it 
means that you and Dan have failed to convince.

If you honestly believe that anyone in who has been in this 
discussion 30 times in the last 3 years (my rough estimate of my 
total cycles through these issues since the first XML group was 
convened) doesn't understand the issues, you are wrong. If you 
believe that an understand of your position will command instant (or 
even eventual) assent, you are certainly (or possibly) wrong.

Ad hominem flames of this sort are in rather poor taste, and 
particularly coming from someone with the power to unilaterally 
decide this question, are also disheartening and demoralizing.

It leaves me with the impression that participation in this forum is 
about as meaningful as participation in a freshman debating club.

   -- David

At 8:26 AM -0400 6/22/00, Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
><flame condescension="on" spellchecker="0" frustration="98%"  >
>David said,
>
>  > there seems to be fairly clear consensus that nothing in
>  >particular need be identified by the namespace name if used as a URI.
>
>This is a typical misuse of terminology by the few left on this list
>who do not understand the model in the URI specification.
>If a "namespace name" does not "identify" a namespace then
>how are these words being used?  Is a namespace nothing,
>because it is abstract?  Is there a complete inability here to comprehend
>something whcih is not a string of characaters?

... Lots of other stuff deleted ...

>If, as Eve suggests, the xml subcommunity (maybe out of pure "not invented
>here" syndrome)
>would like to break free of nasty URIs and reinvent an entire new system
>under their own control, and re-attack the problems of establishment and
>delegation
>of authority, and distributed name services, then that is of course the
>choice
>which  anyone can make, and people do indeed try this every few years.
>
>The advisory comittee would have to think very hard about pledging resources
>to such a fragmentary effort and I would have to think very hard as to
>whether
>I would see XML as a useful markup language for the web.
>
></flame>
>>David
>
>
>Tim

-- 
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David Durand              dgd@cs.bu.edu  \  david@dynamicDiagrams.com
http://cs-people.bu.edu//dgd/             \  Chief Technical Officer
     Graduate Student no more!              \  Dynamic Diagrams
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Received on Thursday, 22 June 2000 15:10:12 UTC