[OPEN-ILS-DEV] IDL

[Bill Erickson]

Murphy

The schema is good and definitely a must-have.  For the sake of discussion,
we might also want to include some sample XML chunks, either in the email
directly or in /~murphy/...

Thanks for getting us started with this.

-bill


On 3/15/06, S. K. Murphy <error23 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I've gotten started; you can take a look at the very rough outline I
> have right now, if you like, at http://forest.gapines.org/~murphy/<http://forest.gapines.org/%7Emurphy/>.
> The next step for me is to work some more on the documentation; make it
> clearer what I've already done and what I plan to do.  If anyone has any
> clarifications, ideas, criticisms, etc... , please email me!
>
> -Murphy
>
>
> On 3/15/06, Bill Erickson <billserickson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > We've been discussing the benefits of defining an interface description
> > language (as an XML document) for OpenILS system objects.  We currently
> > use
> > a process we call the Fieldmapper, which pulls information about certain
> >
> > objects directly from the database to define object properties and to
> > encode
> > the objects as JSON arrays on the wire by defining indices for the
> > object
> > fields.  The Fieldmapper also allows us to define virtual objects as
> > well as
> > virtual fields on non-virtual objects for the purposes of attaching
> > external
> > data to an object or defining objects that don't map directly to the
> > database.
> >
> > We would like to move away from Fieldmapper and move to a
> > language/database
> > agnostic XML desription document.   The initial goal of the document is
> > simply to replace Fieldmapper  so that different languages can define
> > how
> > they want to represent objects, without having to rely on Perl+Postgres
> > to
> > define the objects for them.  Second, the IDL must be "complete" enough
> > to
> > to act as a standalone database schema description so any database
> > (within
> > reason) could construct the proper table layout from the XML document.
> > Finally, we want to use the IDL to encode some basic permission and
> > event
> > information for the purposes of autogenerating a default set of "safe"
> > middle layer accessor/mutator methods for the storage server data.  It's
> > a
> > tall order, I know...
> >
> > To get started, we've asked Murphy, one of our capable interns, to
> > gather
> > the bits and pieces of our conversations regarding the IDL and to get
> > started with a bit of documentation for the various XML elements and
> > attributes we'll be using to implement the first version of the IDL
> > (whose
> > sole purpose is to replace Fieldmapper) as well as some sample XML to
> > keep
> > us all on the same page with respect to structure, etc.  Once Murphy
> > gathers
> > our ramblings and sends them to the list, we can all go back and put in
> > our
> > $0.02 until we have something we can get started with.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Bill Erickson
> > PINES Systems Developer
> > Georgia Public Library Service
> > billserickson at gmail.com
> > http://open-ils.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "But can you imagine if we all start demanding?"
>



--
Bill Erickson
PINES Systems Developer
Georgia Public Library Service
billserickson at gmail.com
http://open-ils.org
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