

Re: XHTML 2.0 and Xlinks (again)

From: Michael Day <mikeday@yeslogic.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 22:14:11 +1000 (EST)
To: Lachlan Cannon <luminosity@members.evolt.org>
Cc: www-html@w3.org
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0208112144370.10388-100000@lorien.yeslogic.com>

> I believe that XHTML could greatly benefit from the includsion of Xlinks 
> to replace the current HTML links, without being any harder to use than 
> it currently is. Why wouldn't you go with something that can be much 
> more powerful when people are ready for it, but easy to slip into?

Seems to me that people are silently balking at the thought of trying to
convince the world to use xlink:href="" instead of href="". The little
syntactical issues are the hardest to overcome, especially as that xlink
namespace prefix will have to be declared somewhere, and few HTML authors
understand (or are even aware of) namespaces.

The unstated rule must be that only one extra namespace declaration can be
added with each major revision. XHTML 1 added the XHTML namespace, XHTML 2
adds the XForms namespace, perhaps XHTML 3 will add XLink...?

Suggestion: the XHTML 2 specification could state that href and any of the
other link related attributes are included by reference from the XLink
specification. No namespaces required, so everyone gets the semantics
without having to worry about the syntax. Generic XML processors crawling
the web won't recognise them as XLinks, but so what? There will be
billions of old HTML files filled with non-XLink links, so everyone will
follow unadorned hrefs anyway.

Received on Sunday, 11 August 2002 08:12:53 GMT
