[MOBY-dev] RFC - Synchronization of Biomoby secondary repositories

[Mark Wilkinson]

Hi Heiko,

> Why should we make a new API call that spews out some custom XML if we  
> can perfectly use RSS within its specs and get a core RSS feed for  
> "human"/aggregator consumption at the same time for free? We stated that  
> we will need to modify the RSS, though not breaking anything as far as  
> we can see.

I think we are effectively saying the same thing; I am not suggesting that  
we make a new API call, I'm suggesting that there are API call's that  
exist already that could be used for this purpose, albeit not so  
conveniently as your RSS suggestion.


> We were not proposing to use RSS just because there's existing  
> functionality ;-) we're not quite THAT lazy...though almost. And...  
> isn't it *cool* to use RSS for some real work?

Well... I guess this is the issue.  You're proposing to use RSS for a  
purpose for which it was not (IMO) designed.  As such, we would have to  
create new conventions around the RSS feed (hereafter called MOBY-RSS)  
that may or may not be more widely accepted in the world.  I agree 100%  
that it would be VERY cool to use RSS in this way, but v.v. a robust  
solution to the problem I'm not entirely convinced.  The amount of RSS-RDF  
we would have to maintain on MOBY Central in order to have a complete  
history that would allow a mirror to reliably re-construct the current  
state of the database is... well... large!  At the moment, I keep only the  
last... 100?... changes.  If you don't pick-up the feed for a day, or if  
someone registers 1000 new services, you wont see them in the feed.  To be  
safe, we would have to keep *all* changes in the RDF document at MOBY  
Central, in which case the overhead of calling the feed versus using the  
MOBY Central API would be about the same.

I'm not *opposed* to the idea of using RSS, and I agree that it is a novel  
and "cool" use for it, but I am concerned that we will perpetuate the MOBY  
reputation of making ad hoc decisions around other standards... (which  
isn't necessarily BAD, it just gives us a reputation for being maveriks,  
which angers the reviewers :-) )

Let's talk about it over a Koelsch (or two) next week!

M


-- 
--
Mark Wilkinson
Assistant Professor, Dept. Medical Genetics
University of British Columbia
PI Bioinformatics
iCAPTURE Centre, St. Paul's Hospital

***CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE***
This electronic message is intended only for the use of the addressee and  
may contain information that is privileged and confidential.  Any  
dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication by  
unauthorized individuals is strictly prohibited. If you have received this  
communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply  
e-mail and delete the original and all copies from your system.