Re: ORBit-like /tmp functions

[Curtis Hovey <sinzui cox net>]

On Thu, 2004-07-29 at 00:44 +0100, Jamie McCracken wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-07-29 at 00:25, Curtis Hovey wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-07-29 at 01:02 +0200, Chipzz wrote:
> > > On Wed, 28 Jul 2004, Jamie McCracken wrote:
> > > 
> > > > We can nuke gconfd when we get round to incorporating an embedded
> > > > relational DB in Gnome (would seem a waste not to if medusa/storage is
> > > 
> > > What about apps not using the gnome libs, but only gtk+ and gconf?
> > 
> > The plan for Medusa is have a dbus/soap interface to insert and retrieve
> > metadata.  Any app may use those protocols to set/get data.  For many
> > subjects/objects, the metadata itself may be treated as first-class
> > data--recent files, bookmarks, window state.  GConf key data could be
> > accommodated, but I don't Medusa will be a good choice per its current
> > plan.  GConf has data typing and validation and I'm not sure Medusa's
> > handling will be adequate.
> 
> Any decent relational DB will support all that for free AFAIK only
> Sqlite is short in that department. What DB does Medusa use if any?

It uses a homemade relational DB at the moment.  It's large and
cumbersome.  I'm divorcing the storage from the search, and will use
Redland to store provenance, subject, predicate, and object.  Redland
supports BDB and MySQL as for disk storage.  I'm using BDB.  I prefer
Sqlite for the underlying storage.  It can be added to Redland, but I
think I might want to look at Storage at that point.

Storage, like Medusa now, like _most_ DBs, do not do a good job of data
typing.  RDF schema, and the XML it incorporates can be validated from
common atomic types like integers, to complex types like URLs.  I
question whether such a mechanism can meet the performance requirements
need by a crucial settings daemon.  Though only setting needs to be
validated.

> > I have not worked on Medusa in 6 months.  I suck.  Plans are subject to
> > change, so Medusa isn't out of the question.
> 
> Would you like a hand?

Yes.  Many have offered in fact.  Little can be done before I put
together a good illustration of the architecture, if not a crude shell
that can be filled in by the willing or the most talented.  I'm way past
my promised February deliverable.


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sinzui cox net
Guilty of stealing everything I am.