RE: [dita] Groups - DITA Proposed Feature #12013 Referencing a range of elements (ConrefRange.html) uploaded

["Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: yas.etessam@xmetal.com [mailto:yas.etessam@xmetal.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, 2007 July 31 1:48
> To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [dita] Groups - DITA Proposed Feature #12013 
> Referencing a range of elements (ConrefRange.html) uploaded
> 
> The document named DITA Proposed Feature #12013 Referencing a range of
> elements (ConrefRange.html) has been submitted by Ms. Yas 
> Etessam to the
> OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC document
> repository.
> 
> Document Description:
> HTML version of DITA Proposed Feature #12013 Referencing a range of
> elements
> 
> View Document Details:
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/document.php
> ?document_id=24823
> 
> Download Document:  
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/download.php
> /24823/ConrefRange.html

Although I can see the "would be nice" factor for this proposal,
it makes me very nervous.  It is basically trying to replicate
the range proposal for the XPointer xpointer() scheme [1] which
was turned down by W3C and has never been accepted as a standard.

If we were to consider this proposal, we would have to add a lot
of careful wording about which combinations of start and end
locations are valid and what happens when they are not valid.

Also, as soon as we add this capability, users are going to wonder
why we didn't also allow xpath-like capabilities for locating
the conref target.  In particular, if we accept the reasons why
this proposal's capabilities "would be nice", I fail to see how
we can argue that one shouldn't be able to specify a conref target 
via an xpath.

Personally, the "nice" factor for this proposal doesn't outweigh
what I see as the potential issues for me yet.

paul

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-xpointer/#b2b1b1b3b6b7