[topicmapmail] Web Services

[Jan Algermissen]

Murray Altheim wrote:

> Jan,
> 
> Rather than continue to ask spurious questions about details, I'll
> just start at the top.
> 
> Just before Christmas I wrote a tiny HTTP server and embedded it
> within Ceryle. This was primarily for serving up internal documenta-
> tion, forms handling, and I'm now planning to use it to access
> contents from the internal database. But I've long been thinking
> about something similar to what you're talking about above.


Murray--


> Do you already have a "query API" for these kinds of things? 

During my various TmTk implementations I had two quite different
query languages but I have never been able to solve the problem of
how I can describe a reasonably complex information need declaratively
(which I consider essential for a query language to be convenient) as
opposed to procedurally. For lazyness and practical reasons I gave up
on the QL for now and TmTk is now queried by something I call
parameterized views (bad term I think...). The views themself are
implemented (now hard-coded, later as plugins) put it seems they
are actually very similar to stored procedures....

So, yes I have a query API but not a query language at the moment. For the
HTTP interactions I have in mind the query mechanism is just right so at
least I am happy right now ;-)


If so,
> are you willing to share it? 

Yes, basically all I do is/will be open source, I am just to bad in
writing documentation, that's why there are no releases, etc.

If not, would you be interested in
> working on one together? 

Of course!! Though I must admit that I have never looked at your
project....too busy. But, yes, I think it would be very fruitful if we
exchanged ideas.

The list above is pretty similar to the
> kinds of things I'd also be interested in obtaining from a Topic
> Map. (You even mention spatial containment, and I've for the past
> week been looking at implementation issues on mereology and
> mereotopology).

> 
> Part of my motivation is to allow multiple Ceryle servers to
> talk to each other.


Mu motivation is to work out the technological stuff that is needed
to deploy distributed topic maps on the Web (obviously we cannot
merge them all in one giant monster) while maintaining the impression
of fully-mergedness (all information about a subject being available in
one place).
> 
> It obviously would be a very good idea if there was a baseline
> of functionality between online Topic Map servers.


Right! And my primary issue here is to create a system that is
'on the Web', IOW a RESTful solution. In order to take full advantage
of HTTP and all the existing create tools for it.

If you can live with that particular stubborness of mine.... ;-)


Jan
> 
> Murray
> 
> ......................................................................
> Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
> Knowledge Media Institute
> The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .
> 
>    [...] all matters of authority and responsibility are ultimately
>    matters of social practice, and never matters of ontology (that
>    is, never just a matter of how things in fact are in the nonhuman
>    world). [...] just as we should not look to ground our moral
>    judgments in the nonhuman authority of a god, so we should not
>    look to ground our empirical judgments in the nonhuman authority
>    of an external world.                          -- Robert Brandom
>    http://www.tilgher.it/brandom.html

-- 
Jan Algermissen                           http://www.topicmapping.com
Consultant & Programmer	                  http://www.gooseworks.org