Re: [zzdev] Proposal: Global IDs for hypergrid dims

[Brent Turcotte <brentt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I've been thinking about interoperability between different hypergrid
>(ZZ) implementations, and I think one important point is the one of the
>same thing being the same thing across implementations, especially
dimensions.
>
>SOLUTION: Dimension names need to be global. Different people should be
>able to use different naming schemes, but there should be some
>coordination so that the same dimension name does not have a meaning in
>two different schemes.
>
>PROPOSAL: Dimension names are URIs (Uniform Resource Identificators).
>These have the benefit that they are easy to agree on, and we don't need
>some kind of own central registry or anything like that. They can be
>URLs; for example, Ted could say that http ://xanadu.net/zz/d.calc is
>*the* dimension for describing that the content of cell C is determined
>by some function (connected to it on, you guessed it, http
://xanadu.net/zz/d.calc).
>
>Whaddya think?
>- Benja

I think it would work.  The value of a standards for dimensions is great, 
especially when considering virtual structures.  A virtual structure for web
pages, conventional databases, word processor documents, etc, would likely
average between five to about fifty dimensions.  A lot of dimensions are
sometimes
required to accurately describe and bring in a file format into the zigzag 
structure.  Not all the information in a virtual structure will likely be used
by applitudes, but it is best to fully translate the file format.

There will be considerably overlap in appropriate dimensions between similiar
file formats (such as different word processing file formats) and dissimiliar
formats (such as a word processing vs database file formats).  Yet all file
formats do have subtle differences, which do need to be taken into account.

If we didn't have standardized dimensions for virtual structures, the result
would be chaos for applitude writers.  A central registry is likely
unnecessary.
URIs, are probably good enough.  It would allow anyone to suggest an
additional
dimension to be made standard.  It the programming community likes it, they
will
adopt it, otherwise it will dropped or depreciated.

To come up with suitable dimensions for virtual structures, I believe the best
approach might be for a small group of people to: 

1) dig up the documents on the structure of the most popular (top 100?) file 
formats
2) assign appropriate dimensions for virtual structures
3) later on, design applitudes which convert file formats into virtual
structures.

I would like to volunteer by finding and understanding the documentation 
on the structure of popular file formats and creating a draft of 
standard dimensions.  

As a starting point I have found:  

http://www.wotsit.org/

which gives information on hundreds of file formats.

Brent Turcotte