Andrew Kuchling wrote:
> I can think of the following unclassifiable modules, off-hand:

I've had hopes of getting a Principia-based answer to a module
registry. Besides the benefits listed below, one main one is that we
have "keyword views". That is, a field in a record can contain multiple
keywords, allowing an entry to appear in multiple locations in a
hierarchy.

Some benefits of this system:

1) Multiple views of the database (hierarchical, keyword, etc.)
2) Full-text index.
3) Multiple administrators without need for shell logins.
4) High-speed object oriented, multiple version database with undo and
private sessions, integrated user database.
5) Data fed from external database (in this case, an tab-delimited file)
via HTTP file upload or allow modification via on-line forms.

Some cons:
1) Based on Principia (read: non-free) software licensed for use by the
PSA.
2) Loss of some of the diff capabilities of the faqwizard.

Some other thoughts/issues:
1) As I was getting cranked up on this again about two weeks ago, I
revisited the issue of a schema. I went back and looked at the IAFA
RFC, then looked at how the LSM folks took a subset. Never came to any
firm conclusions, except thinking that LSM was better because it was
less.

2) One thing that I liked about IAFA vs. LSM, though, was that it could
cover people and documents as well as software.

3) Another consideration is centralized vs. distributed. The way ALIWEB
works is that people register an index of software at their local site.
The index is a URL that contains templates describing what they've
done. A crawler comes around, picks up changes, and indexes them.
Also, the LSM is geared towards getting input via email.

4) Thus, it would be interesting to see the requirements of a module
registry.

I'll try to get a URL ready in the next day or two. If anyone is
interested in what this would look like, drop me a line. I don't want
to post the URL to the SIG because it will get archived, indexed, and
haunt me for the next million years :^)

--Paul

--
Paul Everitt Digital Creations
paul@... 540.371.6909
## Python is my favorite language ##
## http://www.python.org/ ##

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