Chase Preuninger wrote:
> I have I big book on XML, I just never really got the entire thing
> about the xmlns.

Namespaces are a way of managing XML-based grammars so they can be 
reliably recognized by applications, and if necessary intermixed in a 
single document. The xmlns attributes are used to bind prefixes (which 
are just "syntactic sugar" shorthand) to the namespace names (strings 
formatted as absolute URI references). Those bindings are scoped, so the 
same prefix may mean different URIs in different parts of the program. 
It's also possible to set up a default namespace for elements in one of 
those parts, just to save a bit of typing. (This sometimes improves 
readabilty, sometimes makes it worse.)

The namespace names are formatted as URI references because "we already 
know how to manage those so they won't conflict with each other." And 
that's all there is to that. The namespace name has no other built-in 
meaning beyond being the name for this namespace. There is no guarantee 
that there is anything meaningful behind that URI if you try to 
dereference it, or what you might find there if anything is present. 
Basically, you shouldn't be trying. (The Semantic Web folks said they 
would come up with a standard for what a namespace URI might point to. I 
haven't heard any concrete proposals, and it's been several years. Don't 
hold your breath.)

So namespaces are just an alternative to having to always type a 
<gawdaful_long_name_that_you_hope_nobody_else_used/>. That really is all 
there is to them.


Most modern XML standards assume you're working with namespaced 
documents. XML Schema, XPath, XSLT, the Semantic Web stuff, XHTML, 
XQuery, and so on all assume namespaces are a prerequisite.

Read some tutorials and/or re-read that section of the book -- or find 
another document which explains this better.