Re: Metadata or content - and some OCS feedback

["Carmen" <chv@xxxxxxxxx.xxxx]

My notes below...

James> a) to define a channel metadata format (when the channel is updated,
James> who the editor is
James> etc.), or
James> b) to define the channel content format (news item 1, news item 2
etc.), or
James> c) to define both separately, or
James> d) to define both rolled into one.

Ian> I'd like to see a and b, and I think they are separate but
Ian> the syndication format probably needs some additional metadata such as
Ian> date published, and author.

Let's definitely keep a and b separate. Without further broadening
our charter I should mention that there is a lot of syndication
going on that is not XML-based. The channel metadata format could
possibly address these. In my Headline Viewer I store a text/XML
flag, and then handle them separately:

	* For XML the top-level node defines the format
        (RSS, ultraMode, scriptingNews, or MoreOver).

	* For Text, I store a "format" string with each item.
	  It defines the number of header lines, then the number
	  of lines per item, then the content of individual lines.
	  I store the entire format as a single string which
	  might look something like "00,04,TUD3X". This means
	  that there are 0 header lines, 4 lines per item, then
	  a Title, an URL, a Date (in format 3), and then a line
	  to be ignored. Ugly yet effective.

James> I also believe that we should not rush into defining another
James> channel format too early. Netscape are rumoured
James> to be releasing version 1.0 of RSS later this month and no matter how
James> many flaws the current format has it is the most widely supported so
James> backwards compatibility is a must.

I am in violent agreement here.

> Does anyone feel that the current OCS format is too cumbersome from
> either an authoring or a parsing point of view?

Not me. Its easy to parse.

> Do you think that OCS can scale from single channel sites to channel
> portals such as my.userland?

Well, a true portal might have thousands or tens of thousands of
channels.  When (not if :-) we get to this point things will get
unwieldly. We'll need a meta-OCSF which contains a list of
OCSF files. Imagine any significant fraction of the sites listed
in Yahoo in a single file. Ugly, eh?

> Do the Dublin Core elements provide enough flexibility to describe the
> channel and it's owner?

They seem to, although I found it more satisfying to parse a file
with distinctively named elements. Its hard to say why.

Carmen

Try Headline Viewer at http://www.vertexdev.com/HeadlineViewer