XML and namespaces

[Alan Kennedy]

[Alan Kennedy]
>>On the contrary, once you start second guessing the standards and making
>>guesses about what users are really trying to do, and making decisions
>>for them, then some people are going to get different behaviour from
>>what they rightfully expect according to the standard. People whose
>>expectations match with the guesses made on their behalf will find that
>>their software is not portable between DOM implementations.

[Fredrik Lundh]
> and this hypothetical situation is different from the current situation in
> exactly what way?

Hmm, not sure I understand what you're getting at.

If changes are made to minidom that implement non-standard behaviour, 
there are two groups of people I'm thinking of

1. The people who expect the standard behaviour, not the modified 
behaviour. From these people's POV, the software can then be considered 
broken, since it produces different results from what is expected 
according to the standard.

2. The people who are ignorant of the decisions made on their behalf, 
and assume that they have written correct code. But their code won't 
work on other DOM implementations (because the automagic namespace fixup 
code isn't present, for example). From these people's POV, the software 
can then be considered broken.

[Alan Kennedy]
>>With something as finicky as XML namespaces, you can't just make ad-hoc
>>decisions as to what the user "really wants". That's why DOM L2 punted
>>on the whole problem, and left it to DOM L3.

[Fredrik Lundh]
> so L2 is the "we support namespaces, but we don't really support them"
> level ?

Well, I read it as "we support namespaces, but only if you know what 
you're doing".

[Fredrik Lundh]
> maybe we could take everyone involved with the DOM design out to the
> backyard and beat them with empty PET bottles until they promise never
> to touch a computer again ?

:-D

-- 
alan kennedy
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email alan:              http://xhaus.com/contact/alan