This is good ...
On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:42:12 +0000, Michael Kay wrote:
> The problems with namespaces are:
>
> (a) URIs are unwieldy, too unwieldy to use all the time, therefore
> prefixes were introduced
>
> (b) Dealing with names that can't be represented as simple strings
> makes EVERYTHING more complicated (e.g APIs)
>
> (c) Prefixes make the meaning of XML fragments context-dependent, so
> there's lots of machinery (e.g. in XSLT) to carry context around
>
> (d) There's no single universally-agreed definition of the data model
> (e.g. are redundant namespace declarations significant).
I like to recommend that people follow two conventions that make
namespaces less onerous:
1) don't prefix elements; change the default-prefix binding; and
2) don't use QNames in content.
Unfortunately ... two of the most significant and often-used XML
technologies, XSLT and XSD, pretty much can't be used without breaking
both principles.
And that's the problem with all of the proposals for cleaning up
namespaces. XSLT and XSD, taken together, represent an enormously
powerful set of tools for a variety of use cases. Unless you can
specify and write transformation and data-validation tools of
approximately equal power for the namespace-repaired XML variant, your
variant's a non-starter.
Amy!
--
Amelia A. Lewis amyzing {at} talsever.com
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
-- Pink Floyd
