2006/3/16, Sylvain Hellegouarch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > It could lead to confusion, but as Atom doesn't define such an > > attribute in its own namespace (or on elements in its own namespace) > > and as no other extension that I know of do that either, I don't think > > it really matters… > > You are right Atom does not define such an attribute but I'd be happier > if extensions could follow Atom conventions as well. Atom sets the > atom:id value not as in an attribute of atom:id but as its content. Why > not following the convention in the first place?
Because they don't deserve the same role. atom:id gives the identifier of the resource _described_ by the containing element, while thr:in-reply-to/@id gives the identifier of the resource _referenced_ by the containing element (or, actually, gives an identifier _as a reference_ to this resource). In that sense, thr:in-reply-to deserves the same role as @href. If you get back to previous versions of the threading extension, you'll see that it had been proposed that there would only be @href, whether or not the given IRI were to be dereferenced (e.g. by making an HTTP request) or just used as a globally unique identifier. This has been worked out because a) people (including me) wanted that these roles (retrieving vs. identifying) be clearly distinguished and b) there wouldn't then have a mean to give both the resource identifier and an IRI where to retrieve a copy of it. > > Having an attribute named "id" doesn't make it an "ID" (in the sense > > of a unique identifier throughout the document, such as the ID type in > > a DTD of xs:ID in XMLSchema), […] > > Again this is a matter of convention in my opinion. When reading an XML > document I don't want to be obliged to think about the actual meaning of > an id attribute. You are indeed right (and thank you for explaining it > to me) in terms of specification but conventions are often as important. > Specially for people like me who are not XML guru. Well, I wouldn't describe myself as an XML guru either ;-) -- Thomas Broyer
