Re: Thoughts, questions, and issues.

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

Ken MacLeod <ken@bitsko.slc.ut.us> wrote:

> No, the difficulty comes in when you _do_ want to use them, not ignore
> them.
> 
> Using namespaces does add an incremental level of stuff (typing,
> verbosity, complexity) even in environments that support them well.
> If you're in an environment that doesn't support them well yet, they
> can be very difficult.

I can't argue with that, except to say that there are always tradeoffs. I
think that the tradeoff made here (small amount of complexity in exchange
for openness) is the right one. But of course, some disagree. And while I
know it's not the right thing to do, if necessary, you can hard-code the
abbreviations for the namespace URIs allowing you to get a lot of the same
functionality out of a parser that isn't namespace-aware.

-- 
        Aaron Swartz         |"This information is top security.
<http://swartzfam.com/aaron/>|     When you have read it, destroy yourself."
  <http://www.theinfo.org/>  |             - Marshall McLuhan