RE: Handling of the TAML Namespace

[Jacques Durand <JDurand@us.fujitsu.com>]

Thanks Dennis:

(1)(2): we can escalate this to TC admin - this ns doc can always be fixed separately.
(3)(4)(5): right. I could see the @lg attribute being shared, and indeed now that we have removed it from all "normative src" elements and other external doc refs, the remaining @lg have all same meaning (identify an expression lge).
- The @id is used both on testAssertion and testAssertionSet, therefore not exactly same def (not identifying same type of object). 
Now on testAssertionRef we have @taid, which has exactly same meaning as testAssertion/@id...

So for consistency (and for (5) ) we could rename our TA @id: testAssertion/@taid. (which would also make for a more identifiable attr name)

Opinion?

Jacques

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org] 
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:41 PM
To: Jacques Durand; tag@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Handling of the TAML Namespace

In thinking about the ID question, I also had a thought about the namespace established for TAML, 
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/tag/taml-201002/


I notice the following about the namespace document:

1. It doesn't name the namespace (although it is at the place where the namespace resolves).  It should do so in the Introduction line.

2. It doesn't say how one determines what the components of the namespace are.  That is, it refers to the W3C Schema for TAML.  (It also refers to the TAML specification, but that doesn't directly describe the namespace either).

I know (2) is typical, but I think that is because the "template" for namespace documents doesn't include any pro forma for what a namespace might cover.  So people just use the template and do nothing more.  That is not what happens where namespaces are defined in other specifications (such as W3C and DCMI specifications).

3. The attributes that have no namespace in TAML have no namespace.  That is, they are not available in the namespace.  They are only available on the TAML elements where they are defined as admissable attributes by the schema.

4. To allow for expanded use and for re-use of TAML, it is not unusual to add the attributes to the namespace, but to forbid them being used with the namespace prefix in TAML elements.  That is, there are two forms for the TAML attributes, one without the namespace and used with TAML elements and ones with namespace bindings that are for use elsewhere.  Examples include in some other markup that borrows those elements, in RDF (where a namespace is required), and in XHTML.  (There are XHTML attributes defined this way also, and it is how RDFa gets XHTML attributes to use outside of XHTML documents.)

5. However, to do (4), each such attribute has to have a context-independent definition.  That is, whatever TAML elements that have an attribute of the same name, a single definition works for all of those occurrences.

Because of the amount of additional documentation that it takes to have (4-5) work, I do not propose that we go this far with TAML 1.0.

HOWEVER, we should probably make sure that (5) holds so that we have the option in the future.

 I have not checked to see what this impacts, if anything.  We know there were variants of the @lg that might have been impacted.  But I haven't reviewed the current draft to see if there is anything that might be worth cleaning up.

  - Dennis