[wdmmg-discuss] Next steps for backend work (Phase II)

[Alistair Turnbull]

On Tue, 25 May 2010, Rufus Pollock wrote:

> biggest tasks (in *very* rough order of priority) are:
>
> 1. Support for editing and adding "core data".

> 2. Classification work (more below)
>
> 3. Commenting and annotation

> 4. New data: pog codes, COINS (?), ...
>
> I've expanded on a couple of these times further below. Does this look
> about right to people?

Looks good to me.

> ## 1. More flexible data model

> using triple stores here. I therefore think there is a good enough
> basis for trying out a spike solution asap to test feasibility of this
> approach here.

Agreed.

> ## 2. Accounts and Classifiers

> Put succintly: "classifiers are messy, while ATP should not be"

Agreed. This seems to be largely a matter of granularity; if you classify 
accounts, and especially if you do it on multiple axes, you end up needing 
thousands of very specific accounts.

Our realisation is that we should be classifying transactions, not 
accounts. There is no question that we should be representing transactions 
at a fine granularity.

> We therefore have a need to explicitly augment our domain model with
>
>  * Classifiers -- e.g. a Function (such as Health, Social
> Protection), or a Region (such as England North West).

No augmentation required:

 	http://data.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/key/cofog1/value/07
 	http://data.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/key/cofog1/value/10
 	http://data.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/key/region/value/ENGLAND_North%20West

>    * Note that we may also want to add normal attributes to an
> account -- for example to say this account is for an entity based in
> this area but this is different from a classifier.
>  * Classifications: association between an Account and a Classifier
> with a percentage or amount. Means this amount of the money in this
> Account is classified with this classifier

No, I really think this should be associated with Transactions.