Re: the case of two bats

  A document such as
  	<aDoc xmlns:a="./foo" xmlns:b="././foo">
  	  <a:bat>baseball bat</a:bat>
  	  <b:bat>flying bat</b:bat>
  	</aDoc>
  would suffer a change in interpretation under the "expand the xmlns..."
  change, but I haven't seen any evidence that such documents
  are in use.
  
No but this sort of document is more likely


	<aDoc xmlns:a="foo" >
	  <a:bat>baseball bat</a:bat>
	  <a:bat>flying bat</a:bat>
	</aDoc>


If you change the namespace spec then this document becomes a completely
new kind of beast: an XML document whose element names change as the
document is copied from one place to another. 

This _completely_ changes the interpretation of the document.

I accept that you (and Tim Berners-Lee) consider the new interpretation
to be better, I disagree, but that's OK, disagreements are what make
life interesting.

What is not OK is the repeated insistence that the change is a minor
clarification that won't change existing documents much. It is a major
change to _any_ document that is affected at all. (Documents using
absolute namespace URI, which of course is the majority, are not
affected.)

David

Received on Sunday, 21 May 2000 06:41:25 UTC