Namespace Applications

[Gabe Beged-Dov]

Paul Prescod wrote:

> David Megginson wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > The advantages of being able to come up with globally-unique names
> > should be obvious:
>
> Actually it isn't to me. The problem is now you have <a:origin> and
> <b:origin> element types but you don't know what to do with them.

Naming something doesn't equate to being able to process it. As long as  I can identify
something I can always process it later, once I (or someone else) know more. Early vs. Late
binding. Many "processing" scenarios are only concerned with forwarding data.

An analogy is mail transfer agents and envelope vs. contents. The namespace qualified element
name is the address. In David's example, there are two "origin" names. If they aren't
qualified by the namespace, they won't be able to be delivered correctly. Its still up to the
recipient to figure out what to do with the contents of the element once delivered. The
recipient might be quite a few "hops" aways from the sender.

Giving something a unique name is an end in and of itself. You may only find something useful
to do with it further down the timeline or processing pipeline. Late binding is a GOOD thing
as long as the late bound agent gets all of the data needed to "process".

Gabe Beged-Dov
www.jfinity.com








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