[MOBY-dev] Notice that the ever elusive agent will start curating in 2 weeks

[Edward Kawas]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: moby-dev-bounces at biomoby.org 
> [mailto:moby-dev-bounces at biomoby.org] On Behalf Of Frank Gibbons
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 9:09 AM
> To: Core developer announcements
> Subject: Re: [MOBY-dev] Notice that the ever elusive agent 
> will start curating in 2 weeks
> 
> Hi Eddie,
> 
> At 11:34 AM 2/21/2006, you wrote:
> >This is kind of a chicken and the egg problem. The agent can't visit 
> >unless it knows who to visit. It can't know who to visit unless 
> >providers convert their services... :-)
> 
> OK, I understand that it can't make a _routine_ visit unless 
> it knows who to visit. But it should still be possible to 
> call it, even if I haven't registered at all. Perhaps you 
> could set up a form where I could put in my URL, click 
> 'submit' , and then watch my web-logs to see if it comes. 
> Perhaps better yet would be if you could provide some generic 
> RDF, with no service-specific information, which would simply 
> allow the agent to visit, and verify that it can read the 
> RDF. It could then email me that it was able to read this 
> "test RDF" on my site. Who knows, there might be problems not 
> with the agent, but with my local configuration, and it would 
> be nice to be able to verify that the whole infrastructure 
> was working correctly, without complicating it with details 
> of my services.

This sounds doable. I will create a form that contains a field
 for a url and an email address. The agent will then parse the 
rdf located at the url and email the address entered into the
 form with the details of what it found. Probably, email is not
 necessary and I could just output to the browser what the agent 
found. What do you think?


> 
> I'm just worried about going through a bunch of trouble to 
> get ready for the agent, and then some unforeseen problem 
> crops up (at either end), and  the agent's deployment is 
> delayed by 6 weeks, and in the meantime, I'm unable to change 
> my services. I'm not denigrating the agent, I just have 
> recent personal (painful!) experience of how difficult it can 
> be to debug things "over the wire".
I understand your concerns completely.


Eddie


> 
> -Frank
> 
> PhD, Computational Biologist,
> Harvard Medical School BCMP/SGM-322, 250 Longwood Ave, Boston 
> MA 02115, USA.
> Tel: 617-432-3555       Fax: 
> 617-432-3557       http://llama.med.harvard.edu/~fgibbons 
> 
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