[xsl] Namespace wildcards

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo at metalab dot unc dot edu>]

In light of all the issues with namespaces that already exist, I feel 
compelled to ask whether the namespace wildcards introduced in XPath 
2.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/#node-tests> are a good idea. This 
enables expressions like this:


<xsl:template match="*:set">
   This matches MathML set elements, SVG set elements, set elements
   from other  namespaces, and set elements from no namespace at all.
</xsl:template>

In other words the local name matters, but the URI doesn't. Do we 
really want to allow this? Do we actually need this? I'm really 
afraid this is going to further confuse developers about namespaces 
and encourage bad practices.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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|          The XML Bible, 2nd Edition (Hungry Minds, 2001)           |
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