Another look at namespaces

[Paul Prescod]

David Megginson wrote:
> 
> 1. An application must be able to determine the general language used
>    by (part of) a document.
> 2. An application must be able to determine the specific dialect used
>    by (part of) a document.

David, can you please define "general language" and "dialect" in a
manner that I can implement in a computer program? Is "XML" a general
language? Is "XHTML" a dialect? Is "XSLT" a language and "XSLT used with
XSL FOs" a dialect? Please don't appeal to my common sense or intuition
because I have neither and unfortunately neither does my Pentium 233.

> We mustn't make easy tasks difficult for the sake of theoretical
> purity -- 

It isn't a question of theoretical purity. It's a question of
implementability. According to your model every "language" and "dialect"
becomes a special case because there is no definition of what is a
language and what is a dialect. You can't design a general purpose
processor for mapping dialects into languages or between dialects
because it's all "language" specific. Want to know how HTML dialects are
related? Go read the HTML spec. Want to know how SVG dialects are
related? Go read the SVG spec.

> I know, because we tried to do that over and over again in
> the SGML world, and, well, we're not debating SGML any more, are we?

It seems that we are. Renamed, retargeted and revamped -- and getting
"purer and purer" every day (for better or worse). Compare the design
purity of, let's say CONCUR to that of namespaces (not entirely
unrelated problem domains, BTW). And let's not even get into SHORTREF.
SGML was NOT a purist design -- XML is closer but is still pretty far
away from purity.

 Paul Prescod

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