tricky XHTML 1.0 namespace question

[David Megginson]

ht at cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Henry S. Thompson) writes:

[on prefixed and unprefixed attributes]

> Why should they state it explicitly, when the Namespace REC explicitly
> says that is NOT the case?  The fact that people on this list have
> been confused about this does not mean the HTML WG is confused or is
> responsible for sorting out their confusion.  See my message to Dave
> about this [1] for a succinct statement of why this is a time-wasting
> red herring which IS perfectly clearly specified in the Namespace
> REC.

The language in the Namespaces REC means that the two *can* be
distinguished, not that they must be, and every Namespaces-based spec
should include a explicit statement of its usage.  Based on the
examples in the spec, RDF, for example, doesn't distinguish

  <rdf:Description about="http://www.foo.com/">

from

  <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.foo.com/">

and I'll note that it is entirely conformant in not doing so.  In
XHTML, likewise, we have to infer what its usage is from examples
unless the WG gives us a explicit statement.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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