other formats (Re: [Dev] 4Suite RDF and ZOD)

[John Anderson]

I hope to have more time to elaborate, but this is the approach I am 
proposing. RDF (flexible data structures, pervasive URIs, fully 
-extendible). Make the RDF look like normal Python objects that 
transparently persist. I want it to be really easy for programmers to 
manipulate the data in ways they are familiar. I hope the turnaround for 
modifying the schema and manaipulating it in Python should be measured 
in seconds, not minutes.

John

Aaron Swartz wrote:

> Hi, David! I haven't caught up on the mailing list yet, so apologies 
> if I'm repeating what's been said.
>
> On Saturday, November 2, 2002, at 02:48  PM, David McCusker wrote:
>
>> The phrase "RDF-based PIM" makes it sound like RDF is somehow 
>> pervasive in the architecture so it cannot be replaced with something 
>> else. [...] Other ways of writing content persistently might join 
>> Morgan's RDF prototype.
>
>
> I understood this to mean that they were adopting the RDF philosophy 
> (flexible data structures, pervasive URIs, fully-extendible 
> descriptions of everything); I certainly hope they aren't planning to 
> store it as RDF/XML.
>
> RDF is sort of a natural way to think of this data, but that doesn't 
> mean the APIs need look like addTriple, getTriples (indeed, my TRAMP 
> library for Python[1] makes RDF look like regular objects) nor that 
> the storage format encode things in RDF. There are many APIs and 
> backends that can be used without sacrificing the flexibility of the 
> philosophy.
>
> [1] http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/tramp
>
> The important features to me are that everything is intertwingled, 
> with links from mail to address book to recent messages to calendar 
> appoints everywhere, and that I can always add more attributes and 
> values to nodes. In this sense, the RDF philosophy is that we make 
> simple statements (this email is about the Chandler project; this 
> folder should show all messages about the Chandler project) rather 
> than placing things in some sort of hierarchy (new folder with name 
> Chandler; move this email to the Chandler folder).