July 2003 Archives

Getting back into the swing of things from some time off with the family. Like every year, we were at Saratoga for opening day of the thoroughbred horse racing. A tradition in my wife's family that not only predates us, but its predates my mother-in-law. We a bit of time hanging out in Lake George before returning to the track that Friday.

I'm not much of a gambler, but I've come to cherish our yearly trip to Saratoga. For those of you not familiar with Saratoga its one of the oldest horse racing tracks in the states having been established in 1864. (That means its older then Churchill Downs home of the Kentucky Derby.) The track has maintained much of its charm and elegances and the atmosphere is as enjoyable as the races themselves. Its like going to the ballpark (during playoffs) except with a lot more style and class.

Of course the movie Seabiscuit was being promoted heavily. (It was partially filmed at the track afterall.) Trailers for the movie were run a few times a day between races and the second race on opening day was sponsored by the movie.

Besides the unique fashion statements usually only found in magazines – gents in bow ties, white bucks, and seersucker suits and ladies donning large sun hats and colorful summer dresses – I always enjoy seeing the names given to the horses. While there is a thoroughbred horse naming guidelines and a commission to enforce them, they are more interesting, witty and, in a sense, entertaining then your average animal name of Fluffy, Rex, Butch or even Scooby.

Here are some of the horses that were on the program the two days we went to the track:

• Rosie Is A Leader (…of last place)
• Tap the Admiral
• Captain Fantastic (…wasn't)
• Save The Profit
• Conman Cunningham
• Chute The Breeze
• Catlike Move
• Tap Dancing Kid
• First Again (The horse has only come in first once. Finished dead last that day.)
• Jo Jo's Time (Jo Jo must be late a lot because this horse finished dead last.)
• Apple Krisp (Had to bet on that one. Showed with a good finish.)
• Jet Set Jazz (Too bad the horse's previous results weren't nearly as good its name.)
• Evening Attire (A winner. After all, every girl's crazy about a sharp dressed man.)
• Bikini Wiggle
• I'am a Red Sox Fan (Vied for the lead throughout then fell apart at the end. Kind of like the baseball team. ;)
• Withorwithoutyou (U2 fan?)
• Hermione's Magic (Harry Potter fan?)

Looking forward to next year already. I'm going to have to break down and buy a seersucker suit and maybe even a bow tie for the occasion.

In case you where wondering I haven't vanished, but I have been taking some time off from here. I'm also horrendously behind in my answering my email.

A few weeks ago I was feeling rather dull and uninspired about writing. When I looked back at the archives for the past month or so it was confirmed. I'm much more interesting then that. (Really I am.) So I need to make some changes and shake things up. What better way to hit the reset button then to purge my system with some time away?

I'm heading off for a few days of vacation with my family tomorrow. When I get back I hope to wrap up the big project I've been wrestling (another reason for not writing as much) and start with a fresh outlook here.

(It has nothing to due with the fact he has a most excellent first name, but I have another Tim Bray related weblog post.)

Tim Bray has made an entry on a Web interface for Web publishing. I generally agree, and took a couple of quick notes while reading it that I thought I'd share.

Creating an Entry could be improved. I would assume the created date is that in which it was stored in the publishing system so I don't see why you'd need to supply the created. The posted-on date seems more likely. Also, echoing back all of that information with a 201 Created doesn't seem necessary. In all of the examples I have seen by the RESTful elite, 201 Created returns the URI to the newly created resource in the header. That is all you need. I have to agree with them.

Having implemented TrackBack, TrackBack 1.1 does use a simple POST and is somewhat RESTful. (1.0 used GET for all things and was quickly corrected.) It could use some work though. It can also be applied to providing an interface to commenting systems.

Tim's challenge makes sense, but the one thing I don't get from his post is an acknowledgment of the differences between document and API style interfaces. He seems to favor document style via REST, but in his challenge he mentions also building a version of the API in XML-RPC and/or SOAP. I think this needs some clarification in that you can do something similar in spirit only with XML-RPC and that you have a choice with SOAP. Sam Ruby covered this pretty well already. Relatedly, earlier in the entry, he refers to SOAP being 5 times more complex which I would agree with when it comes to rpc/encoded and all of the luggage that brings, but I wouldn't agree with that statement when it comes to document/literal messaging. That's only 1.25-1.5 times harder.

I believe that any Web publishing interface such as Necho should support REST and SOAP document/literal stylings. SOAP isn't as hard as you would think and it provides the added benefit of non-Web protocols making use of it.

Amongst other issues, XML-RPC does not support document based interfaces. (The specification was recently clarified that string ARE NOT limited to ASCII character set.) It requries some real verbose mashing to come close. This defeats the purpose of a common shared syntax that Necho set out to devise and is why I don't think XML-RPC is relevent or appropriate.

For whatever its worth. Just thinking outloud.

Sam Ruby

I've taken a 2003/07/01 snapshot of the maximal example of the format previously known as echo.  The reason for this exercise is that I plan to start prototyping using this as a baseline.  I invite others to do likewise.  Let me know via comments of any implementations.  In particular, I am interested in templates that others can use.

Fair enough. This all seems like a rather silly reinvention of the wheel though as it has not incorporated sound elements of prior art. I've created three prototype MT templates for producing the conceptual Necho model in funky RSS 2.0, Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and Dublin Core with optional RDF elements.

[UPDATE: Werner Vogels wrote to let me know the links to my MT templates where incorrect. DRAT. This only proves that RSS/Necho is making me loose my marbles and I have to find a form of torture… I mean hobby.]

Necho in Funky RSS 2.0
This is an adaptation of my previous XSS and RSS Profiles within the loose confines of the conceptual model. MovableType template here.

Necho using the Dublin Core Metadata Elements Set
This is an example of Necho as I had proposed last week utilizing the naming and semantics of the standard for cross-domain information resource of Dublin Core. MovableType template here.

Necho using Dublin Core with optional and minimal RDF.
This is an adaption of another experimental proposal I put forward mostly based on the work and wisdom of Shelley Powers and Sean Palmer. This example is the previous example, but it uses some of the latest RDF/XML serialization in order to drastically reduce the RDF tax that was present in RSS 1.0. I propose these elements could be optional with a little added consideration to the core. MovableType template here.