[wdmmg-dev] types, names and URLs

Mon Sep 19 13:33:14 UTC 2011

Hi Martin,

thanks for the write-up. As discussed during the dev call

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 3:20 PM, Martin Keegan <martin.keegan at okfn.org> wrote:
> I propose that we abandon the value/classifier/entity distinction, and have
> the following properties for dimensions
>
> 1) a boolean "final endpoint" flag

This is a bit fuzzy. How:
* do we flag spenders?
* if there are multiple entities involved in receiving the funds, does
one, many or any of them get the flag?

> 2) a taxonomy, which may be null

I wouldn't allow null, will only give us trouble while building URIs.
Why not have entities get a default taxonomy "entity". Only makes
sense in combination with:

> 4) that all dimensions's mappings be in the classifier/entity multicolumn
> format

While I'm not eager to keep the simple format, I do like having
non-nested, simple data attached to entries. It seems theoretically
ugly but in practice its quite nice. Assume, e.g. a transaction number
for each entry: why not keep it inline instead of building its own
table?

> Classifiers and entities currently each have a namespace, which is
> represented in URLs, and is non-dataset specific. I'm not sure what I want
> to see happen to that, and would appreciate suggestions.

The URL scheme I would propose is:

/browse - Lists datasets.
/<dataset> - base info
/<dataset>/source/<id>/data - bulk raw download
/<dataset>/entry/<id> - entries
/<dataset>/dimension/<name> - dimension metadata and distinct values
(count and sum over each measure)
/<dataset>/aggregate - API endpoint
/<dataset>/<taxonomy>/<id> - a dimension page
/session/...
/account/...

All this can be shifted by <dataset> for subdomains.

- Friedrich