Namespace Comments

[james anderson]

David Brownell wrote:
> 
> james anderson wrote:
> >
> > as an alternative,
> >
> >   xml:namespace="<prefix>:<uri>"
> >...
> 
> Consider:
> 
>         <MyApp:MyTag xmlns:MyApp="..." xmlns:OtherApp="...">
>                 <MyApp:xyzzy/>
>                 <OtherApp:plugh/>
>         </MyApp:MyTag>
> 
> Basically, many namespaces defined in one element.
> 

that's just a sugaring problem:

  xml:namespace="<prefix>='<uri>' prefix>='<uri>' ..."

(whereby the ':' in my initial query was ill advised)

the processing necessary to pick out arbitrarily named attributes is
sufficiently complex, that unary values cannot, in themselves, be an advantage.

other reasons?
wait a minute ... 
one 'advantage' which comes to mind is that the disjoint attributes allow one
to factor the declarations across physical entities and/or time.

? is that an advantage or a disadvantage?

are "people" really intending that (beyond binding of default namespaces on
the fly - during decoding) the after-the-fact binding/re-binding of an
attribute value have the effect of changing the namespace of a name and
thereby, among other effects, from the perspective of a "dom-based processor",
the 'type' of an already decoded element?

i've wondered, in the past, whether 'universal' names were really intended
denote stable types across documents, since although the name itself may be
stable, the side-effects of decoding two successive documents might well yield
two different element declarations.
using attributes to bind prefixes takes this a step further. 

is it intended that a processor simply tolerate bindings which leave an
element in an "unserializable" form?
should it constrain attribute bindings so that namespace bindings are somehow protected?
are the xmlns:? bindings to be treated as the property of the
parser/serializer whereby the latter is permitted to treat current values
hints only?

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