Alex Russell wrote:
So to recap:
1.) someone made a mistake by allowing namespaces in XML
2.) SVG makes heavy use of this feature as a way to specify many
intrinsic operations for which HTML simply adds "local" tags (e.g., links)
3.) well intentioned attempts to unify the platform say "hey! lets
get everyone using the same (good enough) query language!"
4.) the SVG world points out their heavy reliance on XML features
5.) we tell them to go script themselves instead of exposing an
intrinsic property of tags to the extant selector syntax
I really do loathe namespaces, but is the selectors API actually going
to be this impoverished? If so, I fear it will prevent the actual mixing
of SVG and HTML in meaningful ways.
Please describe significant, concrete use cases that you believe
absolutely cannot be solved using the existing API without native
support for namespaces.
Also, I will note that many JavaScript libraries, including Dojo, lack
support for namespaces in their selector implementations. This is one
reason why support for them wasn't seen as particularly important at
this stage.
However, I will again note that the decision has been made to proceed
with this version without support for namespace prefix resolution, and
to reverse the decision now would hold up the spec for several months.
This will then have a direct impact on the ability to begin version 2,
in which this and, IMHO, much more significant issues [1], especially
the ones affecting JS libraries the most today, are likely to be addressed.
[1]
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/buglist.cgi?product=WebAppsWG&component=Selectors+API
--
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/
