Colonialism, SAX, Java, and Namespaces

[Paul Prescod]

David Megginson wrote:
> 
> > When/if something like RDF takes off that situation may
>  > change.
> 
> I (politely) disagree again -- there are many applications that can
> take advantages of namespaces without an RDF-like infrastructure.

I didn't mean a metadata infrastructure like RDF. I meant that we
namespaces need to be put in a lot more *context* before average
programmers should worry about them. In the abstract they will be
complicated because questions like "what does an unqualified attribute
mean" and "what are best practices" are best answered *in the context of
concrete applications*.

XSL uses namespaces and nobody finds them confusing. Because XSL provides
an intuitive context and interface to the namespace concept. But take that
concept out of context and people will get confused.
-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did,
but she did it backwards and in high heels."
                                               --Faith Whittlesey

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