Re: guidelines on usage of namespaces

[Murray Maloney <murray@muzmo.com>]

In answer to Kris' question: Has anyone encountered alike discussions?
Yes. I have been involved in the dicussion of namespaces within W3C
and with various technical organizations for several years now.

To respond to Kris' deeper questions... The level of granularity of
a set of namespaces must be appropriate to both the data and system
architectures. There is no 'correct answer' to Kris' questions.
It is largely a matter of 'architectural style'. The appropriate
level of segmentation for one set of needs is likley to be different
that that of another set of needs.

Yes, we should offer guidelines on the use of namespaces, and when
it is (or may be) appropriate to rename or recreate a data element
or segment. Through the use of XML Schemas and RDF, it will be possible
to define type hierarchies that enable the creation of new elements
which have a traceable relationship with an existing and well-known
element.


At 10:57 AM 1/13/00 +0200, KETELS Kris wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>Over the last couple of weeks, we've had internally some interesting discussions on the use of namespaces.
>One of the purposes of Namespaces is to avoid data element collision. Now my question is: how granular can one apply a namespace. Is
>it the purpose to have different namespaces at the level of the industry (e.g. Automotive vs financial), at the level of the
>business (e.g. securities vs. payments), technical vs. business (e.g. envelope info vs. payload), at an even lower level (per
>business scenario), or even lower?
>What are the consequences of having many namespaces?
>Has anyone encountered alike discussions?
>Should we need to provide some recommendations on when to use namespaces vs. renaming elements (or other methods such use of as
>Xlink and Xpointer) to solve collisions?
>Should this be discussed in this group or in another (e.g. Core Components, or Repository)?
>
>
>Best Regards
>Kris
>
>Attachment Converted: "D:\PROGRAM FILES\EUDORA\Attach\kris.ketels2.vcf"
>

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Murray Maloney                Phone: (905) 509-9120
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