Re: [Apc-aa-coders] ning.com inspiration for next version of AA

[Mitra <mi...@mi...>]

Hi Norbert

Thanks for the analysis -

Saying that "Tagging support" is just adding a multi-value field is a 
bit over-simplifying. There are a whole bunch of things around 
Tagging (sharing tags, seeing which ones are most popular, seeing 
which other tags are common with the tag you are looking on etc etc).

Simplifying it would be the same mistake that AA made with Blogging, 
and why AA still has poor integration with the blog world (simple RSS 
creation, trackbacks, using shared logins such as technorati etc etc)

In general the discussion in these environments is taking place at a 
level higher than AA works, and developing applications in it is MUCH 
simpler.  For example - putting together an XML->map application in 
Google's API was a couple of hours work, you could do it in AA, but 
you'd be working at a much lower level and it would take a few days 
(at a minimum).

(note I'm not advocating using Ning, I haven't looked at it enough to 
know what applications it is good, or bad for).

- Mitra

At 6:02 PM +0100 31/10/05, Norbert Brazda wrote:
>Marek Tichy wrote:
>>  From the docs it's not clear it's a shared database, one can use 
>>SOAP (a polished XML/RPC) to fetch (thus share) the data. I quite 
>>like SOAP.
>>I doubt it's a shared database as in the whole Ning is just a bunch 
>>of useful php classes, and you write apps in php (= can read DB 
>>password  = that's why we don't have php in AA).  I think they mean 
>>you have several apps within your workspace and they can exchange 
>>data by calling each other methods for fetching content.
>
>You have access to the storage only through API calls so you do not 
>need the db password as far as I understood the docs. Content can be 
>stored in separate user databases, but it is transparently 
>accessible without the need to care about db connections, table 
>structure, etc. You just register, create application (you are the 
>owner) which let users to create/edit/delete content objects and put 
>them into the data store. You/application can mark objects as either 
>public (accessible from all other applications, not just yours) or 
>private (not accessible nor visible from other apps).
>
>Beside PHP you can use what they call XNHTML expressions. E.g.
>
><xn:out value="${Content[1234].my.photo}" />
><c:forEach items="collection" [var="variable"]
>         [varStatus="variable"] [begin="index"]
>         [end="index"] [step="step"] > body
></c:forEach>
>
>
>Marek, is Ning close to "AA as a flexible datastore with good API 
>for use in other tools" you were talking at AACamp?
>
>>BTW, we have talked with Mark about adding tagging into ActionApps. 
>>Haven't done much on that front and I'm not sure I will, but 
>>doesn't do any harm to mention....
>
>Isn't tagging support just question of one "multiple textfiled" with 
>some AJAX glitters (or simple anonymous edit form) to update its 
>content?  Or better - separate slice where user (with author perms) 
>can store tags with "tag title" field and "tag relation" field 
>pointing to the tagged item.
>
>Perhaps "live checkbox" could be extended a litle to provide the 
>functionality needed for "tagging".
>
>It would be nice to code tagging support (or any other new feature) 
>as much general as possible. So it adds functionality that can be 
>re-used also for other purposes.
>
>
>
>norbert
>br...@ch...
>
>
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