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Wait a sec while I change into my Nomex suit... I'd like to propose a mechanism for minimizing namespace hassles while maintaining readability. I expect this will raise hackles immediately, but hear me out: The mechanism for declaring namespace prefixes seems to be the primary failure point for namespaces. The association by scope of a prefix and it's declaration gives rise to all sorts of mischief when scope changes during document manipulation. Add default namespace declarations and things get way too interesting sometimes. All-in-all, given the design motivations of the WG, the basic mechanism is sound on a syntax level. Unfortunately, it creates dependencies withing a document that then need to be managed both internally and externally. Is there a way to manage these dependencies better, make them more idiot-proof? My opinion is that the answer lies in a prefix registry. I know that's controversial, mainly because it creates an authority structure that has to be consulted prior to assigning prefixes to names. I think this can be mitigate, though, by having a provisional namespace prefix mechanism that is essentially the same as it exists now, minus default namespaces. Registered prefixes would then be denoted by special naming conventions. The advantage of a registry is that prefixed names become universal names when prefixes are registered. There are no scope issues. The primary disadvantage of registration is that there will be a prefix rush. I don't see a dependency on access to the registry at parse time, unless there are resources to be associated with the prefix (such as a URI to a RDDL doc) that the parser needs. And, lastly, default namespace declarations would have to go... I'm sure this is not a new proposal, but it's been at least a year since it was shot down last time... :-} Those permathreads need regular wear or they grow stiff.
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