Re: [libdb-develop] Python module - intent

[Bruce D'A. <bd...@fa...>]

On Nov 5, 2004, at 4:36 AM, Terry Hancock wrote:

> I have made an attempt to read the Perl code.  Well, all I
> can say is, I *thought* I had learned Perl, but I seemed to
> have forgotten what I learned.  Your comments and program
> file style are a great relief from the usual hacker fare,
> though -- thank you, I really respect that!
>
> The code doesn't really seem to do that much though, as yet
> (or I'm not looking at the right bits), and I'm wondering
> what it's for in a general way.  I wonder if I need to
> understand it at all.  Do you discuss the object-model
> anywhere?

Morbus switched to PHP/Drupal awhile ago, so that's outdated.

See here though, where there's a page on the data model:

http://www.disobey.com/noos/LibDB/

> And of course, I visualize a greater variety of items -- not
> just software packages, but e-books, audio records,
> slide-shows and hardware CAD drawings, etc.  Some of the
> layers in FRBR (such as "Manifestations") will not be
> separate items in the FTP storage server, but rather
> separate ways of processing and delivering the same
> content.
>
> Will I benefit from examining your object model do you
> think, or would I be better off designing code from
> scratch, but sharing the SQL schema?

I think this is a good idea.  I posted something on this recently:

http://netapps.muohio.edu/blogs/darcusb/darcusb/archives/2004/10/26/ 
library-applications

I'm not really a programmer (am slowly learning, but it takes time, and  
I don't have much of it), but I've been playing a bit with a new Ruby  
web framework called Rails that is really nice.

I want to make a call that I repeatedly make: please design whatever  
you do so that I (a professional scholar) can use it.

That means I need to be able to store metadata on everything from legal  
documents to magazine articles, to books.  The FRBR is designed  
precisely for this flexibility.

Perhaps there's a way you can also collaborate on a configurable form  
system (say using something like YAML to specify fields and their  
labels; so the basic logic, not code)?  I threw together a wiki page  
that shows what I'm thinking.

http://darcusb.geo.muohio.edu:2500/dev/show/config

There are other alternatives of course (such as more explicit  
hierarchy).

Also, I want to be able to add a simple module that can format  
bibliographies in documents.  I have an XSLT-based formatting solution  
I'm working on, but there still needs to be some integration with a  
database such that it can scan the document for citations, and insert  
the (XML) bib records to pass of to the XSLT processor.

See here for more on some ideas for that:

http://netapps.muohio.edu/blogs/darcusb/darcusb/archives/2004/10/02/ 
bib-formatting-as-web-service

Bruce