On  7 Dec, Mark Birbeck wrote:

> On the *semantic* side of this, the purpose of @role is to provide
> features that may be an absolute necessity in one domain but
> completely irrelevant in another. So rather than having to fight over
> them on the list all the time, each sphere that is using XHTML 2 can
> add whatever they like. :)

  Yes ... the idea is an interesting one.

  Instead of agreeing on a common set of elements and their
  interpretation, the XHTML 2 specification basically provide a
  mechanism for overloading the semantics of existing elements.[*]

  Mapped to natural languages this can described by saying that, in
  English, the word "foo" means - in the same context, mind - not only
  "foo", but possibly "bar" and quite likely also "baz".

  Of course, this does make it somewhat more difficult to write
  dictionaries, but that's not a problem: we'll simply write one per
  area of expertise. It's a common enough practice out in the real
  world.

  However ... in order for a random user NN to gain access to the
  underlying semantics of documents on an XHTML 2 web, he or she will
  need a browser able to understand any, and all, of the author-extended
  language it might run across.

  This theoretical UA will, in other words, need not only understand the
  basic semantics of XHTML itself, but also any overloading a random
  author might come up with.

  The task of writing such a system feels somewhat daunting, but I am
  intrigued enough to consider starting such a project. I believe I will
  call it "Babel".



 [*]
  Feel free to step in here and tell me how wrong I am. It would cheer
  me up something beautifully.

-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@g...                http://www.greytower.net/ 
   [+46] 0708 557 905