Re: [xml-dev] JAXP's ID Transform failing to include namespacedeclaration attributes

Mike Champion wrote:

> The dominant view has always been that DOM user essentially has to do
> what someone editing text by hand has to do -- figure out where the
> namespace declaration attributes should go and put them there.

Yech. I realize the horse is long gone from the barn, but this strikes
me as very much the wrong decision. I view namespaces as a fundamental
part of XML and that forcing users to track/insert/delete declarations
is on par with allowing them to add Attr nodes to Text nodes.

> It is indeed a "big honkin' mess" but it's not clear in my mind whose mess it
> is or who can  clean it up.  I must confess that after several years of
> discussions of how to define an API that is simultaneously compatible
> with XML syntax, DOM Level n-1, the Namespaces Rec,  robust when things
> are added to or moved around in the tree, minimally inconvenient to XPath users,
> implementable without armies of programmers and testers

At least for namespaces, providing backwards compatibility to level 1 --
especially in a single DOM tree -- is madness. (I note with sympathy
that as I start writing my justifications, I start tripping over cases
that make me, too, want to curl up into a fetal position and whimper ;)

-- Ron