Re: More namespaces perversion

David Brownell (db@Eng.Sun.COM)
Thu, 08 Oct 1998 08:43:59 -0700


Martin Bryan wrote:
>
> >This means that there will be no standard way to make use
> >of the bindings (between element/attribute names and "meaning") that
> >are necessary.
>
> What is to stop you using the concept Descriptive Elements, or even the
> class definition facilities, used for property set definition, as defined in
> the SGML Extended Facilities annex of ISO 10744?

Nothing -- but the point is that there's nothing preventing me
from doing anything else either! Hence, no standard: I can't
look at a document and know what its namespaces "mean" in any
useful sense. (With DTDs, one expected natural language text
in the form of per-element/attribute/... comments.)

Perhaps what we need is XML Processing Instructions to associate
with the namespace declarations, which identify how the bindings
between namespace URIs and semantics are provided ... ;-)

Yes, I know that defining "meaning" was not a goal of the XML
namespace team.

- Dave