[horde] babel?

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

I didn't mean to let this discussion die; I apologize for not getting back to
this earlier.

Quoting Michael Hoennig <michael at hoennig.de>:

> And I really think, database storage should be optional ;-) Getting to
> your points:

Okay - I'll respond to this, but I think we're talking past each other, at least
a bit: I think we both agree that there should be an interface for defining
forum storage, and that such an interface could be implemented both with a
database and with plaintext files (or xml files, which I think is a much better
idea).

> 	I am pretty sure, a grep is faster, at least for 
> 	fulltext search. And is'nt fulltext search mostly needed?
> 	My approach would be a search engine (this one with a 
> 	database, yes) anyway. But the orginals should be a stupid
> 	plain HTML, XHTML or XML file. Reindexing is no problem.
> 	To me it's even ok to have a HTML version (so static requests
> 	can be served) based on the original XML version of each
> 	article.

It (grep) won't work on windows, but that's probably something you're willing to
live with. Anyway, if searching is abstracted out enough, this won't be an
issue. One issue is whether or not searching should be in the same abstraction
as storage, or a seperate one. The idea of using search engines seems to me to
point to making it a seperate abstraction.

> generating other forms of content
> 	This is a point, but there are still other solutions. One
> 	solution is to have an XML format as an origal and a rendered
> 	HTML version additionally. Another, of cause, is stripping off
> 	the old layout from the HTML (structured) files and merging
> 	a new template into it.

For things like cell phones or palm pilots, stripping the layout from an html
isn't going to be a very attractive option for generating alternate versions.
I'd strongly reccomend, if we're going to have a file-based driver, that it use
xml for all files.

> decent locking on updates
> 	there is only one piece of software accessing the pages 
> 	anyway - so locking should be easy. On the other hand:
> 	a supporting database is not a real problem for me, I
> 	just like to have th

Saying only one piece of software is accessing the pages is kind of vague -
conceptually, sure, but really it's a bunch of different webserver processes (or
threads), and then what if you want to put snippets of the content on a summary
page, like "last comment posted"?

> My idea is an object oriented abstraction layer for all data and all
> documents we have to deal with. Then, there can be one implementation
> with plain files, one with a database - or mixed: administrative objects
> using the database, documents use filesystem.

Yup.

> My argument here is, virtualla every single newly created article
> will be viewed within the next 5 minutes. At least in forums which
> go well enough that it is worth to bother about efficiency at all.

What if you're generating content for palm pilots, wap browsers, and maybe
several different kinds of web browsers (fancy layout, lynx, whatever). It'd be
nice to be able to do that, and then are you going to generate all of those
right then and there? Seems like wasted storage space if you do...

> One point is, that I do not really believe that rebuilding is so much
> faster than stripping off the old stuff and merging a new template. The
> other is, as mentioned before, an XML format for an original storage and
> a HTML rendered version is ok to me. Although again, this could be
> optional.

I don't think that "stripping off the old stuff" is going to hold up as a robust
way to do templates. You can't assume that all the formatting changes would be
easily segregated at the beginning and end of the document.

> I don't see this problem at all. With a single accessing program,
> locking is never a real problem. The problem just comes up if multiple
> programms access the data directly.

Again, I'm doubtful that a web server is going to behave like a "single
accessing program" for this respect.

> Me too. And I'm really interested in defining a layer of classes which
> could be implemented in different ways - with a database and with flat
> files.

Yup. =)

> Does it make sense to take the existing babel as a base or does it make
> more sense to start from scratch? What do you thing, although I took a
> look at the sources, I've not even bothered to make them run. Do they
> run at all? You know more about that anyway.

Right now, they don't. They did at one point, but it's pretty mysql dependant
and doesn't have much of anything that we're talking about. It probably makes
sense to steal where we possibly can (and from other open source systems too),
but to start from scratch.

-chuck

--
Charles Hagenbuch, <chuck at horde.org>
Many states consider gambling so immoral that they not only prohibit private
gambling organizations, they thoughtfully provide their own.