Re: Problems and Opportunities at purl.org

David and Jason, hello.

On 11 Nov 2015, at 1:41, David Wood wrote:

> I actually agree with Jason - but think we need an optional UI for 
> non-technical users on top of the GitHub interface.

Not just for non-technical users, perhaps.

The w3id.org solution of letting everyone customise a pile of .htaccess 
files is a very smart one, because it let w3id.org get up quickly, but I 
hope it's just seen as an interim solution.

At present, I can apparently use _anything_ from mod_rewrite in there, 
which gives me a great deal of scope for being Clever, which would be a 
vice.  It would also tie w3id.org to Apache, or at least to a 
mod_rewrite work-a-like for all eternity, so may not be an optimal 
archival solution.

A pile of .htaccess files is a fine implementation technology, but not, 
I think, an interface.

As an alternative, one could imagine something as simple as a CSV file:

     /people/nxg/myurl,http://example.org/foo/myurl
     /people/nxg/tree1/*,http://example.org/bar/$$/index.html
     
/people/nxg/tree2/([a-z]*)-v([0-9*),http://example.org/baz/$1/version-$2

Put angle brackets round that and call it XML, or curly brackets and 
call it JSON, and you're up-to-the-minute.  And technology-agnostic.

Something like that could be prepared (on- or off-line), uploaded, 
validated, and journaled, quite easily perhaps.

One could also take a great deal of useful inspiration from DNS zone 
files.

Also, as a more general point, I consider myself a technical user, but 
I... am not a fan of git.  Not a fan.  A not-fan.  Not, by any means or 
in any sense, an Enthusiast.

All the best,

Norman


-- 
Norman Gray  :  https://nxg.me.uk
SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK

Received on Wednesday, 11 November 2015 11:11:40 UTC