Don't Break the Link: Avoid Four Costly Pitfalls in Linking and Reuse

["Ram Kumar" <kumar.sydney@gmail.com>]

Article about linking resources with reference to XLINK.

Regards,

Ram

Don't Break the Link: Avoid Four Costly Pitfalls in Linking and Reuse
Brandon Jockman, Innodata Isogen White Paper

Link management plays a vital role in establishing the overall quality
of an XML-based system. Too often, organizations underestimate the
significance of this key requirement -- causing systems to fall short
in providing the full suite of link management services required by
modern enterprises. The global transition of documents into XML prompts
project requirements related to authoring, singlesource/ multiple-output
publication, content management and workflow. Linking traditionally
refers to a simple point-to-point link, such as a hyperlink from one
Web page to another or a navigable link between two pages in a PDF
document. The XML Linking Language (XLink) W3C specification1 provides
an XML-based linking syntax for traditional links. However, the
combination of its cumbersome authoring syntax and general lack of tool
support prevents it from being the most commonly used linking syntax.
Other common approaches to XML linking include ID/IDREF, W3C Schema's
key/keyref, or custom links. They have limitations as well. Some common
XML flavors, such as XHTML and DocBook define their own link elements.
To support these custom linking syntaxes, some tools provide configurable
link definition systems where custom link elements can be defined along
with the type of link. However, these non-standard links may not be
portable between tools. Unless adequate analysis and preparation takes
place, simple linking can be anything but simple in a complex system.
Linking can also include other types of referencing. This type of
linking is often called use-by-reference or reuse. In a reuse link, the
point-to-point link relationship has a modifier specifying that content
from the target location should be pulled into the source location at
a given point in time. The most complete XML-based reuse mechanism is
defined by the XML Inclusions (XInclude) W3C specification.

http://www.innodata-isogen.com/knowledge_center/white_papers/Link_Management.pdf
See also TBL's 1998 Cool URIs Don't Change: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI