Another look at namespaces

[MURATA Makoto]

Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl at simonstl.com> writes:
> At 08:30 AM 9/16/99 -0700, Andrew Layman wrote:
> >[Someone] wrote that, although a schema may be somehow associated with a
> >namespace, the "meaning" of markup will be determined in a number of ways
> >such as style sheets, or procedural code, or maybe the schema.  I believe
> >this understates the importance of the schema.  A schema makes a
> >contribution to the Infoset.
[snip]
> 
> With all due respect to Andrew Layman, I find this to be a gross
> overvaluation of schemas, and a substantial contrast with both the XML 1.0
> approach (which doesn't require validation) and with Tim Berners-Lee's
> comments, which included:

I believe that schemata should *not* contribute to the document
information at all.

An XML document without schemata or DTDs is a perfectly good citizen
in the chaotic WWW.  Very often, we simply cannot make valid
documents, either because schemata or DTDs are too restrictive (or
old) or they do not exist at all.  Most of the upcoming XML documents
(as opposed to XML data) on the WWW will be sometimes valid and
sometimes invalid.

Just like the semistructured database, application programs should never 
rely on schemata.  If they do, they would discriminate invalid documents, 
which are a lot more common in the WWW.  Let' use schemata only for 
sanity-checking.

Makoto
 
Fuji Xerox Information Systems
 
Tel: +81-44-812-7230   Fax: +81-44-812-7231
E-mail: murata.makoto at fujixerox.co.jp

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