Introduction to Namespaces

The Namespaces in XML Recommendation from the W3C is an incredibly simple, incredibly short Recommendation that causes a lot of confusion and argument among XML developers.

The Recommendation itself is fewer than 10 pages long, and the syntax for Namespaces is simple, even though it might not look very pretty. So, why all the fuss over Namespaces?

Well, the first stumbling block with Namespaces is conceptual. Many people learning about XML for the first time are coming from Web design or document management backgrounds, and might not be familiar with the concept of Namespaces. For developers coming from an application programming background, Namespaces might be more natural because those developers may have encountered ...

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