RE: ISSUE-41/ACTION-97 decentralized-extensibility

Quoting Tony Ross <tross@microsoft.com>:

> I feel HTML 5 already provides an elegant means of simplifying   
> popular extensions based on XML Namespaces with its handling of SVG   
> and MathML. Per your example, HTML 5 itself will enable authors to   
> use vector graphics without a knowledge of namespaces because the   
> SVG namespace will be assumed when an <svg> element is encountered.   
> Other extensions could initially require the use of namespaces in   
> markup, but then be integrated into a future version of HTML in the   
> same manner should they become popular enough. Consequently an   
> author would only be "forced" to use namespaces in markup for   
> extensions that had not yet become popular enough to be integrated   
> into HTML.

Experience with SVG and MathML suggests that this kind of post-hoc  
denamespacification becomes significantly more problematic when the  
tag names of the imported vocabulary clash with the existing HTML tag  
names. Therefore if one can imagine ones vocabulary being used in HTML  
without explicit namespacing in the future, one must design it with  
unique tag names from the start. Given this, the supposed advantages  
of namespaces to vocabulary designers don't apply in this situation.

Received on Sunday, 18 October 2009 10:13:09 UTC