The XML gurus are starting to notice us, and are associated ducks are
decidedly non-linear.
:-)
Misc responses, none of them very definitive:
1. Our approach to the use of XML has been decidedly informal, and
well below your standards, Dan. We never looked hard at namespaces
when we setup our tag list. I have a fuzzy recollection that expat
didn't even support namespaces back when we started using it, and that
served as a convenient excuse for the fact that I didn't really know
anything about XML namespaces anyway.
2. Our tag vocabulary is not fully documented in any current fashion.
Jeff had a document which described things, but it's not current.
3. Even though we're not at 1.0 yet, our resistance to any
incompatible change in our use of XML has been growing steadily as the
project matures.
4. You should watch for a followup message from Paul Rohr, who is the
offical project advocate for ultra-high readability of the tag set. I
*predict* he's going to object to the namespace suggestion because of
the extra verbosity of adding the namespace resolution name and its
associate colon, to every tag.
5. UTSL apparently means "Use the Source, Luke" ?
That said, I don't think we should reject the suggestion out of hand.
I just wanted to let you know that the suggestion is likely to
encounter some pushback.
--> I see the abiword format is based on XML. nifty! > > A suggestion: how about a namespace identifier to > document your tag vocabulary? > > i.e. where it currently writes: > > ======= > <!-- You may obtain more information about AbiWord at > www.abisource.com --> > [...] > > <abiword version="0.7.3"> > ======= > > how about: > > <abiword xmlns="http://www.abisource.com/1999/abw-0.7.3"> > > or: > <abiword xmlns="http://www.abisource.com/1999/abw-0.7.3" > version="0.7.3"> > > and put some information about the tags at that address... > an XML schema would be really cool. > > Is there any documentation on the tags? I tried to UTSL and > I came up with: > > http://www.abisource.com/lxr/source/abi/src/wp/impexp/xp/ie_exp_AbiWord_1.cpp > > to actually support namespaces, the code that reads the file > shouldn't care what prefix is used; for example, this should work: > > <ab:abiword xmlns:ab="http://www.abisource.com/1999/abw-0.7.3" > version="0.7.3"> > <ab:section>....</ab:section> > </ab:abiword> > > and I suggest that for evolvability, you allow extensions from other > namespaces ala: > > <abiword xmlns="http://www.abisource.com/1999/abw-0.7.3" > xmlns:sm="http://my.org/1999/abi-smellovision-extension"> > > <div sm:smells-like="roses"> > ...</div> > </abiword> > > references: > > Namespaces in XML > World Wide Web Consortium 14-January-1999 > http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xml-names-19990114 > > XML Schema Part 1: Structures > 6 May 1999, David Beech, Scott Lawrence, Murray Maloney, > Noah Mendelsohn, Henry S. Thompson > http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/ > > XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes > 6 May 1999, Paul V. Biron, Ashok Malhotra > http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/ > > -- > Dan Connolly, W3C > http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
-- Eric W. Sink, Software Craftsman SourceGear Corporation eric@sourcegear.com