pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

Chad Knepp wrote:

> Sorry to take so long to respond to this John, it's just that I don't
> have much to add.

Good post! I think we do need more of this sort of post!

> John Schinnerer writes:

Lots of good stuff. However...

>  > The API should *not* implement any particular markup or presentation of 
>  > data whatsoever.  That is the job of client software and UIs ('front ends').

The question here is how to handle embedded hyperlinks in a block of 
text. For example the reference question or a relationship. A simple way
is to return an xml format text which does have markup, which is fairy 
straigthforward for clients to work with (lots of standard tools for 
this). The other option is to return some sort of collection object

        results[0] "Here is a "
        results[1] (Hyperlink,http://zip.zap.org/)
        results[2] " in the middle of a line of text".

this makes me go ugh.

>  > The API *should* provide ways to ask the data engine to perform all the 
>  > operations we can think of between a client and the data set (and be 
>  > expandable to those we haven't thought of yet).  For example:

Argh, can make for a very complex server.

A good XML DTD could specify the API in a straight forward way.
I've done stuff like this in other projects, and its got lots of advantages.

Rich