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When should I use the default XML namespace instead of prefixes?
XML Interview Questions and Answers
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77. When should I use the default XML namespace instead of prefixes?
This is purely a matter of choice, although your choice may affect the readability of the document. When elements whose names all belong to a single XML namespace are grouped together, using a default XML namespace might make the document more readable. For example:
<!-- A, B, C, and G are in the http://www.google.org/ namespace. -->
<A xmlns="http://www.google.org/">
<B>abcd</B>
<C>efgh</C>
<!-- D, E, and F are in the http://www.bar.org/ namespace. -->
<D xmlns="http://www.bar.org/">
<E>1234</E>
<F>5678</F>
</D>
<!-- Remember! G is in the http://www.google.org/ namespace. -->
<G>ijkl</G>
</A>
When elements whose names are in multiple XML namespaces are interspersed, default XML namespaces definitely make a document more difficult to read and prefixes should be used instead. For example:
<A xmlns="http://www.google.org/">
<B xmlns="http://www.bar.org/">abcd</B>
<C xmlns="http://www.google.org/">efgh</C>
<D xmlns="http://www.bar.org/">
<E xmlns="http://www.google.org/">1234</E>
<F xmlns="http://www.bar.org/">5678</F>
</D>
<G xmlns="http://www.google.org/">ijkl</G>
</A>
In some cases, default namespaces can be processed faster than namespace prefixes, but the difference is certain to be negligible in comparison to total processing time.
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