I'm not sure the HTML analogy flies (in particular, I'm not convinced that, say, schema.org isn't just re-invention of namespaces or RDFa via another mechanism).
I have no argument that XML namespaces are somewhat klunky, but they are at least standardised and have well understood transformations (e.g: stripping them entirely is a trival operation). I wouldn't go mad on them, in fact I'd try hard to avoid them, but the fact I have to maintain - effectively - cross-reference lists against data in a separate descriptor is one of the reasons I periodically go sniffing around gradle.org. I'd also note that the current web attitude is 'if it don't render, upgrade your browser' - effectively deciding that backwards compatibility is no longer a design goal. On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Benson Margulies <[email protected]>wrote: > I'm opposed to namespaces for two reasons. One is a global reason, the > other applies only to 'core' configuration. > > The global reason: read all the very cogent writing from the HTML5 > process as to why they have run screaming away from namespaces. > > The more local reason: Consider what started this discussion recently: > adding a declaration to a POM that indicates that the project serves > the purpose of multiple artifacts for dependency management. If you > put that in a namespace, how to do you explain it? "It was invented in > 2011" is one possible explanation. Pretty soon, we're up our ears in a > confusing collection of namespaces. Spring, at least, groups things > functionally into namespaces. But that doesn't work if the criteria is > 'new feature -> new namespace'. And you've got users cursing us as > they try to remember which namespace goes with which feature. > > On the other hand, if you want to open the door for new information in > the POM that 'belongs to' particular plugins (e.g. m2e), namespaces > would at least make logical sense, unless you are persuaded by the > HTML analogy. > > > > On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Nigel Magnay <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> If tools validate against the schema, they know when a POM is, in > >> fact, valid for its declared model. Thus, any elements that the tool > >> does not recognize are proved to be 'messengers from the future'. > >> > >> > > It would help enormously if 'messengers from the future' used an > appropriate > > XML namespace so that they could be discarded by clients that don't > > understand them. > > > > It always surprised me that the pom files never allowed the plugins to > > extend the meaning. For example, using some plugins I'm forced to > maintain a > > separate config file, referencing much of the same information by > > coordinate. It'd be nice to be able to do things like > > > > <dependency> > > <groupId>grp<groupId> > > <artifactId>flex-components> > > <version>1.0</version> > > <scope fm:domain="default" fm:url="/components/flex.swf">rsl</scope> > > <dependency> > > > > > > I guess existing tooling is sadly not namespace aware. > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
