How much extra code for multiple Namespaces?

[David Megginson]

Paul Prescod writes:

 > Adding three lines of code introduces the opportunity for three times
 > the bugs in a real application? I don't buy it. Looking for "HTML 4.0
 > strict" OR "HTML 4.0 frameset" is no harder than looking for "UL" OR
 > "OL", if the software is set up right.

Not with most current software and specs, unfortunately -- with XSLT,
JavaScript+DOM, XQL, XPointer, or anything else that's likely to be
deployed within the next 24 months, we're looking at more like

  3 * (# of refs to element names) * (# of refs to attribute names)

For any non-trivial XML code, such as an XSL stylesheet, that's
probably at least 500-600 extra lines.  Of course, if you're rolling
your own, low-level software in Perl or Java, you can always design
the infrastructure any way you want.

Paul has argued that XSL, DOM, XPointer, etc. should (or should have)
been designed differently; but, in fact, they haven't, and there's far
from unanimous agreement that they should be, so it's not quite
sincere to keep talking about "three more lines of code".


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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