[MOBY-dev] Shims

[Paul Gordon]

Hi everyone,

This is a very general question, especially for non-native-English 
speakers.  I was going to add  a top-level "Shim" category of services 
to the ontology,  but I'm pretty sure most non-native-English speakers 
would have no idea what this means.  I'm borrowing the term from

D Hull, R Stevens, P Lord, C Wroe, C Goble (2004). Treating shimantic 
web syndrome with ontologies. First AKT workshop on Semantic Web 
Services (AKT-SWS04).

Essentially, I'm tired of having a DNASequence, and not being able to 
directly call BLAST services because they take FASTA_NA.  Services in 
the "Shim" category would be something like the Conversion category, but 
specifically they would convert between MOBY data types for the purpose 
of service compatibility.  Having all such services in one category 
would make it easier to do these transformations automagically for the 
user.  But do people think this is  a good name, or what would they suggest?

shim: A thin slip, usually of metal, used to fill up a space between 
parts subject to wear, to align or adjust the level of rails, etc. 
(Oxford English Dictionary)