The Peace Process: DOM and namespaces...

[Tyler Baker]

Don Park wrote:

> Would this problem be solved if:
>
> 1. DOM elements and attributes are statically bound to namespaces at
> creation.
> 2. Namespace support in the DOM Level 2 spec is provided soon and remains
> unchanged until recommendation.

Maybe except I would rather have a DOM Level 3 where you put a lot of what I would consider
"bloat" on the DOM into this category and have Level 2 just do some simple things which DOM
Level 1 lacks in terms of being a a nice dumb document model for node iteration.  You could
add namespaces in here as well.  In particular, I would suggest keeping Chapter 3 of the
working draft in Level 2 and moving the rest to a Level 2+ or a Level 3.  Supporting the DOM
is not so practical if it requires monumental programming resources to support it.  That is
not to say people will not need the features in Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 4, but I
think that they are not nearly as necessary for most apps as the stuff in Chapter 3 dealing
with iterators and filters.


> Whether above two conditions can be met is another question.

That would require the W3C willing to be flexible to the needs of the developement community
at large and not just its members.

> Regarding the proposal to create a new URI scheme for XML namespaces, this
> is just an engineering practice and is not subject to approval by W3C
> because the Namespace spec does not place any constraint on the choice of
> URI scheme used to declare a namespace.  Frankly, I don't see the advantage
> of using the HTTP URI scheme over XNS (XML NameSpace).
>
> Again, here is an example of an XNS URI scheme:
>
> <book xmlns="xns:com.docuverse.demo.bookstore:"/>
>
> expands to:
>
> <xns:com.docuverse.demo.bookstore:book/>
>
> Comments?

If I am getting your ideas correct here, this is the exact convention you need to use for
maintaining unique names without having to deal with complicated issues lilke namespace
defaulting, using attributes for namespace declarations, etc. etc. etc.

This would in effect be a formality for maintaining unique names just as there is a formality
for generating GUID's.  Yah, you can never enforce that people will actually use this
formality, but I think this idea that you will be working with documents and schemas that you
have no prior knowledge of, is a little far fetched.

Tyler


xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo at ic.ac.uk the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo at ic.ac.uk the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa at ic.ac.uk)