Everyone's favorite deconstructionist, Don Park, started a discussion on XML-DEV about XML namespaces. Are they really a "good thing"? What ill effects might they have?

David Megginson responded by explaining the benefits of packaging constructs in programming languages, testifying to the usefulness of namespaces: "I programmed for over a decade without package names (namespaces), and I would never want to go back. "

Didier Martin clearly needed more rest before he wrote his reply.

The general opinion was that namespaces aided element re-use from other vocabularies within different document contexts. Megginson pointed out that this wasn't an issue in SGML where the document was the atomic unit.

There was some discussion over whether a central registry of namespaces was required, but the consensus among replies was the an open evolution of namespaces might be better.