On Feb 21, 2007, at 20:56, Ian Hickson wrote:
Why would this single feature be worthy of discoverability when the
entire
rest of the XBL processing model requires the UA to have built-in
knowledge? I understand that xml:id would be very appropropriate
and an
important feature of proprietary languages, but I don't understand
why it
would have any benefits in the context of a language that is only
useful
in conjunction with UA-native support and that is intended to be
used as
a well-known standard language on the Web.
Put it this way: if XBL is supposedly only useful in the context of a
UA that already knows everything there is to know about it, why
bother even using XML? It brings in all manners of other constraints
that one could happily do without. It brings in a lot more verbosity
than id vs xml:id — how many of those elements could skip their end
tag given that the grammar is known? I'm seeing a whole lot of them.
The verbosity argument simply doesn't hold, not matter which way I've
seen it argued thus far.
If you don't want to use XML, I'll be the first to say that there are
many cases in which you could be right. I don't, however, believe
that this is one of them. So if you're using it, use it in a
meaningful manner — that is to say, one that maximises data reuse at
minimal cost. There are cases in which document reusability has not
been useful, or has come at too high a cost. Xlink springs to mind
(mostly because it sucks donkey teeth to begin with though). But
xml:id does not fall into that category. Using it costs nothing, and
gives the difference between being able to just reuse XBL in all
manners of CMSs, document management, or publishing systems on the
Web just like that, or having to teach them all about something new.
Given that the cost of using xml:id is zero, the trade-off is quite
simple to all those who don't have a religion that prevents them from
adopting things that the CSS WG has been accused of not doing. Its
adoption is obvious to the technological atheists.
I have marked your request as a potential formal objection.
And one it will be.
--
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/
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RDF is like violence: if it doesn't work, use more!
