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Re: "Roots" of confusion introduced at W3C (shortish)
- To: xsl-list at mulberrytech dot com
- Subject: Re: "Roots" of confusion introduced at W3C (shortish)
- From: AndrewWatt2000 at aol dot com
- Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 02:45:19 EDT
- CC: xsl-editors at w3 dot org, timbl at w3 dot org
- Reply-To: xsl-list at mulberrytech dot com
I would like to ask a short and simple question to which, at present, there
may be no short and simple answer.
I hope someone from W3C will contribute an answer.
The background to the question is explained in earlier posts in the thread
and in earlier threads.
When writing about XML and its family of technologies today is it possible to
use a single, unambiguous term for each of the following two concepts -
1. what in the XPath Recommendation is represented as the "root node" (also
referred to as the "document root") and
2. what the XML 1.0 Recommendation calls the "document element"?
Given that increasingly there is use of multiple XML technologies surely it
is important to unambiguously be able to refer to these "things". <grin> ...
I can't call them "entities" since in XML 1.0 that means something else
entirely. :)
What I want to avoid is having to repeatedly write things like, "Let's take a
closer look at the blah blah (which is called the doo da in XPath and the
widget in DOM and the whatsit in SVG)".
May I propose that the following be the standard terms:
For item 1. - "document root"
For item 2. - "element root"
I believe we do need some clear, unambigous, non-clumsy way to communicate
these ideas across XML technologies. I don't believe that way currently
exists.
Andrew Watt
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