Just got this fun error message while trying to build UCRepositoryCore after making some changes:
Of course, that means that when I re-open the UCRepositoryCore.pbproj file, it’s going to insist on rebuilding the index. Again. Including the entire known java universe. Again. Grr… Another half hour at 100% CPU waiting for that to finish…
Read MoreJust came across a great term on Tim Bray’s ongoing site: Development by Accretion. He used it as a throw-away comment when talking about something else, but it struck a chord.
From Tim’s posting:
I ended up having to write some real dodgy ad-hoc code to discard the right-side apparatus in certain poorly-thought-through special cases. Hmm… I don’t want to write a bloody soup-to-nuts editorial system by accretion, but the slope is feeling slippery.
Interesting article on Meta-time discussing some of the big players in the LMS game. They ignore many of the small guys, which seem to be positioned to fill the gap between the insanely expensive Enterprise-class LMS vendors and the roll-your-own solutions.
I think it might be relevant to add this to the discussion: If you build your content to known standards (like, say, IMS and SCORM), it DOESN’T MATTER which LMS you use, as long as it’s compliant, too… Want to switch LMS? OK… Just export your content and data from the old LMS, and import it into the new one. IMS is doing a lot of work on filling in the gaps on the standards, and we should all be leveraging that work.
Read MoreApple has posted what appears to be a good introduction/overview/description of their Enterprise Objects framework (EOF). Very cool technology, used throughout CAREO (and most other WebObjects applications).
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/webobjects/Enterprise_Objects/index.html
Read MoreSpent much of the afternoon refactoring some WebObjects components in CAREO to let me better reuse them as bits of themey goodness. Stuff like Search Results, which is currently a single Page wrapped in the PageTemplate, will become 2 separate components: a reusable component to display search results from any query, and a standalone page to wrap that reusable component to reproduce current behaviour. The big push for this is the SciQ zones, which will have all kinds of search results all over the place, with a need to customize the design of each page.
Read MoreHere’s some of the XML databases we’re looking at here, in no particular order:
Exist
Current front-runner. Cheap (free), implements XPath, with nice ties into XML-RPC and JSP. Implements the XML:DB interface too. Seems fast, but wondering how it will scale up, or react in a “real” environment (outside of the test apps that ship with it). Rob is investigating this now, and has a copy of our entire metadata repository stored in it as native XML files. It has a cool file structure metaphor, so it’s like SSH’ing into a box to browse files and run queries.
NOTE: I had originally incorrectly stated that Exist implements XQuery. I meant XPath. XQuery is listed as a possible future feature for Exist, but it is not currently supported.
I just upgraded to Java 1.4.1, and all seems great. jEdit is much more responsive, and the SCROLL WHEEL WORKS! YAY! It’s SOOO much faster than 1.3.1 was, and this is without the hardware accelerated SWING (I’ve got a pokey Powerbook G4/400, and the video card isn’t up to snuff for that).
It’s interesting that although 1.4.1 was rumoured to be a from-the-ground rebuild in Cocoa, the Services menu still doesn’t seem to work from within java apps. Hrm…
Read MoreJust came across some really good info on XML databases on Ronald Bourret’s XML website (thanks, Scott!).
XML And Databases
XML Database Products
I just added a “Blogs I Read” link in the sidebar on this weblog. It links to an automatically generated list of the 82 blogs I’m subscribed to. I can’t figure out how it’s sorting them, because they’re certainly not in the order they’re listed in NetNewsWire. I’ll have to write my own XSL to do it right, it seems.
Or, here’s a direct link.
Read MoreI just implemented a component to address a specific need for the SciQ project. They need to have the ability to have dynamic “magazine-like” pages within CAREO, so I whipped up the Template direct action method. This goes one major step beyond the previous Page direct action, which just spewed out text stored in the database.
Template will allow full access to the theming engine, allowing you to embed other CAREO components within the magazine pages (like, for instance, search results or repository objects).
Read MoreArticle available at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/itandsociety/v01i03/abstract.html#5
Info on how structured/unstructured searches may help/hinder different types of users from finding anything useful. Could have implications for something like a Learning Object Repository…
Abstract:
This research examines the pattern of Web information seeking in four groups of nurses with different combinations of domain expertise and Web expertise. Protocols were gathered as the nurses carried out information-seeking tasks in the domain of osteoporosis. Domain and Web novices searched breadth-first and did little or no evaluation of the results. Domain expert/Web novices also searched breadth-first but evaluated information more thoroughly using osteoporosis knowledge. Domain novice/Web experts searched in a mixed, breadth-first/depth-first pattern and attempted to evaluate information using general criteria. Domain expert/Web experts carried out depth-first searches, following deep trails of information and evaluated information based on the most varied and sophisticated criteria. The results suggest that there are distinct differences in searching patterns related to expertise. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are provided.
Good (and brief) article on the topic, posted on metamodel.
“What are the differences between a vocabulary, a taxonomy, a thesaurus, an ontology, and a meta-model?”
Link found via EdTechPost and eLearningPost.
Read More