[Nml-wg] Identifiers

[Freek Dijkstra]

>> Question 2. What attributes to use for references in XML?
>> a) existing id and idref in NM-WG namespace
>> b) redefine id and idref in NML namespace
>> c) create dedicated namespace for just id and idref

Jeroen van der Ham:

> I thought we decided on B?

Jason Zurawski:

> I think b) makes the most sense; we do this in NM/NMC now.

Freek Dijkstra:

> No big prefence. In order: a, c, or b

Talking in private to Jeroen (today) and Jason (at OGF), my question
seems ambigious. Let me try again.

Let's assume we will make a derived Ethernet schema,
http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/ethernet/2015/05/

Question 2b. What attribute to use for references in XML?
a) id and idref in NM-WG namespace
b) id and idref in NML base namespace
c) id and idref in NML Ethernet namespace
d) id and idref in OGF namespace (created for just these attribs)
e) about and resource in RDF namespace

Am I correct that our preferences is:
Jeroen: b
Jason: c
Freek: a, d or e


> To me it seems very weird to reuse NM-WG namespace for something
> trivial as this and for that reason almost ridiculous to create a
> dedicated namespace for that.

At the risk of making flamebait:

Redefining the same thing over and over and over again (option c), seem
to nullify the use of namespaces.

For one thing, the power of XML or RDF comes from using libraries that
understand some part of the XML, for example about ordering, namespaces,
and identifiers. (To me that was the compelling reason to like RDF; the
semantic stuff is only a side-effect for me). By defining this once, it
is easy to augment a library to treat this as special.  If we decided to
redefine this over and over again, each time in a new namespace, the
implementor must write the same code again and again (especially if a
good XML library is used, where equal name in different namespaces are
considered something different). I dislike that.


> It is uncommon to see [namespace prefixes for attributes]:
> 
>    <ns:element ns2:attribute="something" />
> 
> But it is possible.

Yes, it is indeed uncommon for XML. It is common for RDF/XML.



>> Question 5. MUST urn:ogf:network syntax be used?
>> a) All identifiers MUST follow the urn:ogf:network syntax
>> b) All identifiers MUST be a URI, and SHOULD follow the urn:ogf:network
>> syntax
>> c) All identifiers MUST be a unique, and MAY follow the urn:ogf:network
>> syntax
>> (some more variants are possible)
> 
> No strong preference.  I think that using the urn syntax helps to 
> guarantee uniqueness, but I would need to see examples of when it would 
> be impossible to assign this type of ID to a given object.

I think it is always possible to assign a urn:ogf ID. The question if we
allow other unique identifiers that have already be defined for other
protocols.

Regards,
Freek