<usenet@t...> wrote in message 
news:d8b592b1-6dfd-439c-8350-e21231d99bef@7......
>
> These pages might help you to understand namespaces better:
>
> http://atmanes.blogspot.com/2006/07/short-explanation-of-xml-namespaces.html
> http://www.jclark.com/xml/xmlns.htm
>
> They're not really that difficult!

Yes, I don't consider them to be difficult. My comment is that the tutorials 
don't do a good job of explaining them. I often learn better using 
references than tutorials, and I have not yet gotten to the point of looking 
at the relevant references. My concern is that the reference material for 
namespaces is scattered and therefore not as easy as most reference 
material. I hope I am wrong.

The first article you link to ("A Short Explanation of XML Namespaces") is 
too short. The second article ("XML Namespaces" by James Clark) appears 
useful. It is not short, probably because namespaces are more complicated 
than many people realize. The article starts with an explanation of URIs and 
then explains prefixes. Most descriptions of namespaces explain the use of 
prefixes and say that they are aliases of something but most don't explain 
what the prefixes are aliases of; or something like that.

Namespaces are not simple; they are probably easy to understand but most 
tutorials over-simplify them.