Fw: Namespaces

[James Clark]

Mark Birbeck wrote:

> The XML 1.0 or
> parser 'view' of the data looks at elements and attributes, their values
> and their relationships to each other. The 'post-parser' view is of the
> same information but from the perspective of which namespace an element
> or attribute belongs to.

I would say that the difference between the view that the parser gives
you and the view that the post-parser (namespace processor) gives you is
simply that, in the post-parser view, element and attribute names can be
qualified by a URI. There is no need to make it any more complex than
that.

All this stuff about namespaces is just unnecessary, confusing
complexity that invites the over-analysis that is so prevalent in this
forum.  If the spec was called something like "XML Universal Names" and
never mentioned the word "namespace" and didn't include Appendix A
(which thankfully is not normative), absolutely no functionality would
have been lost and I think there would have been far less confusion.

I've updated my note

 http://www.jclark.com/xml/xmlns.htm

to try to address some of the comments I've received.

James


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