[Bioperl-l] Identifiable and Describable

[Hilmar Lapp]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ewan Birney [mailto:birney@ebi.ac.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 4:21 PM
> To: Hilmar Lapp
> Cc: bioperl-l@bioperl.org
> Subject: RE: [Bioperl-l] Identifiable and Describable
> 
> 
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Hilmar Lapp wrote:
> 
> > I've seen lsid_string() there too, which I think shouldn't be there.
> > It pertains to a specific implementation of IdentifiableI, 
> namely the
> > LSID implementation. Another one might have mobyid_string(), or
> > whatever.
> 
> 
> I don't consider LSID a specific *implementation* but a specific
> *encoding* of the information. 
> 
[...]
> > 
> > I.e., you would have
> > 
> > 	Bio::Identifier::SimpleID is-a IdentifiableI
> > 	Bio::Identifier::LSID is-a IdentifiableI
> > 	Bio::Identifier::MobyID is-a IdentifiableI
> > 	Bio::Identifier::EnsemblID is-a IdentifiableI
> > 	# ... and whatever more you wish
> > 
> 
> I still don't think LSID/MOBY/Ensembl's are different 
> implemetnations -
> they use the same slots in semantically identical ways and it is more
> encoding things...
> 

They do, right. But the LSID string would be an encoding, wouldn't it? And another one might encode the same information in a different way, right? So, the method lsid_string() returns an encoding, and the name implies that it's a specific encoding.

One could rename to say id_string() in the interface, and an implemention using the LSID encoding then returns an LSID-compliant string ... Does that make sense?

	-hilmar
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