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by InfiniteRand 1524 days ago
Namespaces address a real concern that inevitably comes up in protocols dealing with complex data and combining syntax from different standards or sources. That being said it is very easy to make half-assed solutions to the problem of namespaces, and the full-assed solution for namespaces is always a little complex and brittle, so it isn't surprising to me that most people end up going the half-assed route.
1 comments

Wait a sec.

By far the most widely used half-assed solution to namespaces is in the HTML5 parser to special case svgs (and maybe other curiosities? Dunno). And if I understand correctly, that happens to be a full-assed specified algorithm that all current browsers use.

That is all in order to avoid the problems that would have come with requiring the full-assed XML namespaces in that case.

If I were a political operative, I would attempt to bog down the XML apologists on this point whenever they attempt to argue that JSON gets as complicated as XML when you try to include namespaces.