Semantic Web using Magritte

> I was wondering if anyone tried to do any kind of XML mapping using
> Magritte. I have the requirement to generate RDF from my business
> objects, so I was thinking of ways to simplify this. My idea was to
> add something in the Magritte descriptions for each object that
> pointed to the appropriate URI and schema.
>
> This may be more trouble than its worth. I suppose anyone who has done
> anything with generating XML from Magritte could maybe provide some
> insight on any hurdles they faced, design ideas, etc.
>
> I also am looking at Magritte for simplifying XML serialization in
> general. My problem overall is that I have to generate all these
> formats (XML for web service, RSS, ATOM, RDF) and I do not want to
> have to write a complex parser to even do this 1/2 way dynamically.
> Are there any other libraries out there that do this already? For
> instance, I did notice that there is that library (name escapes me)
> that lets you port your objects between Smalltalk versions by dumping
> to XML files, so that is somewhat close to what I need to do.
>
> I am thinking since I already have a large number of Magritte
> descriptions, I might as well expand upon that. This will also let me
> do things like change a schema dynamically and provide easy access
> memento objects to do things like create a preview of whatever format
> I am trying to produce. Thoughts?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>

> Hi
>
> For audioscrobbler I did the opposite, from given XML to Magritte:
> http://source.lukas-renggli.ch/audioscrobbler.html
> The audioscrobbler xml is quite gay and I was surprised when I got it
> working. It is also used for feed parsing of the Seaside homepage.
>
> Cheers
> Philippe
>
> 2007/12/5, [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:
>> I was wondering if anyone tried to do any kind of XML mapping using
>> Magritte. I have the requirement to generate RDF from my business
>> objects, so I was thinking of ways to simplify this. My idea was to
>> add something in the Magritte descriptions for each object that
>> pointed to the appropriate URI and schema.
>>
>> This may be more trouble than its worth. I suppose anyone who has done
>> anything with generating XML from Magritte could maybe provide some
>> insight on any hurdles they faced, design ideas, etc.
>>
>> I also am looking at Magritte for simplifying XML serialization in
>> general. My problem overall is that I have to generate all these
>> formats (XML for web service, RSS, ATOM, RDF) and I do not want to
>> have to write a complex parser to even do this 1/2 way dynamically.
>> Are there any other libraries out there that do this already? For
>> instance, I did notice that there is that library (name escapes me)
>> that lets you port your objects between Smalltalk versions by dumping
>> to XML files, so that is somewhat close to what I need to do.
>>
>> I am thinking since I already have a large number of Magritte
>> descriptions, I might as well expand upon that. This will also let me
>> do things like change a schema dynamically and provide easy access
>> memento objects to do things like create a preview of whatever format
>> I am trying to produce. Thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>

> Thanks for the input, I had definitely considered that. I was even
> looking at XSLT but I really like keeping everything in Smalltalk. I
> do indeed need to go many directions since there are many entry points
> and services with this application. I also have explored creating new
> canvases and doing some things with Readers/Writers like in Pier.
>
> I would do exactly what your describing, but I still am left with the
> problem of generating good output from my objects. So for example,
> sticking with music, say we have an Album object. I have all kinds of
> stuff already for Magritte in there for this object. Now I want to do
> something like in my seaside control provide an RDF button that when
> clicked, generates the RDF output. I would need to traverse the entire
> object/description graph and output the RDF with the album name,
> title, etc. and the track listing, and then artist info, etc. It
> definitely would suck without the metadata to identify which RDF URI
> corresponds with each object in the graph.
>
> Essentially, I am thinking of creating a simpler
> serializer/deserializer driven by Magritte descriptions similar to
> what I've done before in .NET and Java. I am just not sure if that is
> very Smalltalk like as I like to always think there is a better way
> than resorting to what I have done in those languages :)
>
> For instance, there is a JSON serializer in .NET where I can say
> Album.ToJSON(), or the XML serializer Album.ToXML(). It so happens
> that depending on the serializer/deserializer, it will read attributes
> I put on my class like [XmlIgnore]. That stuff is really primitive I
> think compared to what I can do in Magritte.
>
> I guess I am trying to prevent a future meltdown because as this
> application is developed, I am going to have to start going back and
> forth with lots of web services to communicate with Java and Flash in
> particular. I want to set a good example on the Smalltalk side by
> generating everything automagically.
>
>
> Quoting Philippe Marschall <[hidden email]>:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > For audioscrobbler I did the opposite, from given XML to Magritte:
> > http://source.lukas-renggli.ch/audioscrobbler.html
> > The audioscrobbler xml is quite gay and I was surprised when I got it
> > working. It is also used for feed parsing of the Seaside homepage.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Philippe
> >
> > 2007/12/5, [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:
> >> I was wondering if anyone tried to do any kind of XML mapping using
> >> Magritte. I have the requirement to generate RDF from my business
> >> objects, so I was thinking of ways to simplify this. My idea was to
> >> add something in the Magritte descriptions for each object that
> >> pointed to the appropriate URI and schema.
> >>
> >> This may be more trouble than its worth. I suppose anyone who has done
> >> anything with generating XML from Magritte could maybe provide some
> >> insight on any hurdles they faced, design ideas, etc.
> >>
> >> I also am looking at Magritte for simplifying XML serialization in
> >> general. My problem overall is that I have to generate all these
> >> formats (XML for web service, RSS, ATOM, RDF) and I do not want to
> >> have to write a complex parser to even do this 1/2 way dynamically.
> >> Are there any other libraries out there that do this already? For
> >> instance, I did notice that there is that library (name escapes me)
> >> that lets you port your objects between Smalltalk versions by dumping
> >> to XML files, so that is somewhat close to what I need to do.
> >>
> >> I am thinking since I already have a large number of Magritte
> >> descriptions, I might as well expand upon that. This will also let me
> >> do things like change a schema dynamically and provide easy access
> >> memento objects to do things like create a preview of whatever format
> >> I am trying to produce. Thoughts?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> >> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> > https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>

> Thanks for the input, I had definitely considered that. I was even
> looking at XSLT but I really like keeping everything in Smalltalk. I
> do indeed need to go many directions since there are many entry points
> and services with this application. I also have explored creating new
> canvases and doing some things with Readers/Writers like in Pier.
>
> I would do exactly what your describing, but I still am left with the
> problem of generating good output from my objects. So for example,
> sticking with music, say we have an Album object. I have all kinds of
> stuff already for Magritte in there for this object. Now I want to do
> something like in my seaside control provide an RDF button that when
> clicked, generates the RDF output. I would need to traverse the entire
> object/description graph and output the RDF with the album name,
> title, etc. and the track listing, and then artist info, etc. It
> definitely would suck without the metadata to identify which RDF URI
> corresponds with each object in the graph.
>
> Essentially, I am thinking of creating a simpler
> serializer/deserializer driven by Magritte descriptions similar to
> what I've done before in .NET and Java. I am just not sure if that is
> very Smalltalk like as I like to always think there is a better way
> than resorting to what I have done in those languages :)
>
> For instance, there is a JSON serializer in .NET where I can say
> Album.ToJSON(), or the XML serializer Album.ToXML(). It so happens
> that depending on the serializer/deserializer, it will read attributes
> I put on my class like [XmlIgnore]. That stuff is really primitive I
> think compared to what I can do in Magritte.
>
> I guess I am trying to prevent a future meltdown because as this
> application is developed, I am going to have to start going back and
> forth with lots of web services to communicate with Java and Flash in
> particular. I want to set a good example on the Smalltalk side by
> generating everything automagically.
>
>
> Quoting Philippe Marschall <[hidden email]>:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > For audioscrobbler I did the opposite, from given XML to Magritte:
> > http://source.lukas-renggli.ch/audioscrobbler.html
> > The audioscrobbler xml is quite gay and I was surprised when I got it
> > working. It is also used for feed parsing of the Seaside homepage.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Philippe
> >
> > 2007/12/5, [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:
> >> I was wondering if anyone tried to do any kind of XML mapping using
> >> Magritte. I have the requirement to generate RDF from my business
> >> objects, so I was thinking of ways to simplify this. My idea was to
> >> add something in the Magritte descriptions for each object that
> >> pointed to the appropriate URI and schema.
> >>
> >> This may be more trouble than its worth. I suppose anyone who has done
> >> anything with generating XML from Magritte could maybe provide some
> >> insight on any hurdles they faced, design ideas, etc.
> >>
> >> I also am looking at Magritte for simplifying XML serialization in
> >> general. My problem overall is that I have to generate all these
> >> formats (XML for web service, RSS, ATOM, RDF) and I do not want to
> >> have to write a complex parser to even do this 1/2 way dynamically.
> >> Are there any other libraries out there that do this already? For
> >> instance, I did notice that there is that library (name escapes me)
> >> that lets you port your objects between Smalltalk versions by dumping
> >> to XML files, so that is somewhat close to what I need to do.
> >>
> >> I am thinking since I already have a large number of Magritte
> >> descriptions, I might as well expand upon that. This will also let me
> >> do things like change a schema dynamically and provide easy access
> >> memento objects to do things like create a preview of whatever format
> >> I am trying to produce. Thoughts?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> >> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> > https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>

>
>
> -- Matthias
>
> On Dec 5, 2007 3:33 PM,  <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Thanks for the input, I had definitely considered that. I was even
>> looking at XSLT but I really like keeping everything in Smalltalk. I
>> do indeed need to go many directions since there are many entry  
>> points
>> and services with this application. I also have explored creating new
>> canvases and doing some things with Readers/Writers like in Pier.
>>
>> I would do exactly what your describing, but I still am left with the
>> problem of generating good output from my objects. So for example,
>> sticking with music, say we have an Album object. I have all kinds of
>> stuff already for Magritte in there for this object. Now I want to do
>> something like in my seaside control provide an RDF button that when
>> clicked, generates the RDF output. I would need to traverse the  
>> entire
>> object/description graph and output the RDF with the album name,
>> title, etc. and the track listing, and then artist info, etc. It
>> definitely would suck without the metadata to identify which RDF URI
>> corresponds with each object in the graph.
>>
>> Essentially, I am thinking of creating a simpler
>> serializer/deserializer driven by Magritte descriptions similar to
>> what I've done before in .NET and Java. I am just not sure if that is
>> very Smalltalk like as I like to always think there is a better way
>> than resorting to what I have done in those languages :)
>>
>> For instance, there is a JSON serializer in .NET where I can say
>> Album.ToJSON(), or the XML serializer Album.ToXML(). It so happens
>> that depending on the serializer/deserializer, it will read  
>> attributes
>> I put on my class like [XmlIgnore]. That stuff is really primitive I
>> think compared to what I can do in Magritte.
>>
>> I guess I am trying to prevent a future meltdown because as this
>> application is developed, I am going to have to start going back and
>> forth with lots of web services to communicate with Java and Flash in
>> particular. I want to set a good example on the Smalltalk side by
>> generating everything automagically.
>>
>>
>> Quoting Philippe Marschall <[hidden email]>:
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> For audioscrobbler I did the opposite, from given XML to Magritte:
>>> http://source.lukas-renggli.ch/audioscrobbler.html
>>> The audioscrobbler xml is quite gay and I was surprised when I got  
>>> it
>>> working. It is also used for feed parsing of the Seaside homepage.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Philippe
>>>
>>> 2007/12/5, [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:
>>>> I was wondering if anyone tried to do any kind of XML mapping using
>>>> Magritte. I have the requirement to generate RDF from my business
>>>> objects, so I was thinking of ways to simplify this. My idea was to
>>>> add something in the Magritte descriptions for each object that
>>>> pointed to the appropriate URI and schema.
>>>>
>>>> This may be more trouble than its worth. I suppose anyone who has  
>>>> done
>>>> anything with generating XML from Magritte could maybe provide some
>>>> insight on any hurdles they faced, design ideas, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I also am looking at Magritte for simplifying XML serialization in
>>>> general. My problem overall is that I have to generate all these
>>>> formats (XML for web service, RSS, ATOM, RDF) and I do not want to
>>>> have to write a complex parser to even do this 1/2 way dynamically.
>>>> Are there any other libraries out there that do this already? For
>>>> instance, I did notice that there is that library (name escapes me)
>>>> that lets you port your objects between Smalltalk versions by  
>>>> dumping
>>>> to XML files, so that is somewhat close to what I need to do.
>>>>
>>>> I am thinking since I already have a large number of Magritte
>>>> descriptions, I might as well expand upon that. This will also  
>>>> let me
>>>> do things like change a schema dynamically and provide easy access
>>>> memento objects to do things like create a preview of whatever  
>>>> format
>>>> I am trying to produce. Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>>>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki

>> Just by analogy: did you have a look at the way PierBlog creates the
>> RSS feed for the blog? Seems to be a similar problem...
>
> It doesn't really use the descriptions to generate the blog items, it
> could (or better it should) though.
>
> Lukas
>
>>
>>
>> -- Matthias
>>
>> On Dec 5, 2007 3:33 PM,  <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Thanks for the input, I had definitely considered that. I was even
>>> looking at XSLT but I really like keeping everything in Smalltalk. I
>>> do indeed need to go many directions since there are many entry
>>> points
>>> and services with this application. I also have explored creating new
>>> canvases and doing some things with Readers/Writers like in Pier.
>>>
>>> I would do exactly what your describing, but I still am left with the
>>> problem of generating good output from my objects. So for example,
>>> sticking with music, say we have an Album object. I have all kinds of
>>> stuff already for Magritte in there for this object. Now I want to do
>>> something like in my seaside control provide an RDF button that when
>>> clicked, generates the RDF output. I would need to traverse the
>>> entire
>>> object/description graph and output the RDF with the album name,
>>> title, etc. and the track listing, and then artist info, etc. It
>>> definitely would suck without the metadata to identify which RDF URI
>>> corresponds with each object in the graph.
>>>
>>> Essentially, I am thinking of creating a simpler
>>> serializer/deserializer driven by Magritte descriptions similar to
>>> what I've done before in .NET and Java. I am just not sure if that is
>>> very Smalltalk like as I like to always think there is a better way
>>> than resorting to what I have done in those languages :)
>>>
>>> For instance, there is a JSON serializer in .NET where I can say
>>> Album.ToJSON(), or the XML serializer Album.ToXML(). It so happens
>>> that depending on the serializer/deserializer, it will read
>>> attributes
>>> I put on my class like [XmlIgnore]. That stuff is really primitive I
>>> think compared to what I can do in Magritte.
>>>
>>> I guess I am trying to prevent a future meltdown because as this
>>> application is developed, I am going to have to start going back and
>>> forth with lots of web services to communicate with Java and Flash in
>>> particular. I want to set a good example on the Smalltalk side by
>>> generating everything automagically.
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoting Philippe Marschall <[hidden email]>:
>>>
>>>> Hi
>>>>
>>>> For audioscrobbler I did the opposite, from given XML to Magritte:
>>>> http://source.lukas-renggli.ch/audioscrobbler.html
>>>> The audioscrobbler xml is quite gay and I was surprised when I got
>>>> it
>>>> working. It is also used for feed parsing of the Seaside homepage.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> Philippe
>>>>
>>>> 2007/12/5, [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:
>>>>> I was wondering if anyone tried to do any kind of XML mapping using
>>>>> Magritte. I have the requirement to generate RDF from my business
>>>>> objects, so I was thinking of ways to simplify this. My idea was to
>>>>> add something in the Magritte descriptions for each object that
>>>>> pointed to the appropriate URI and schema.
>>>>>
>>>>> This may be more trouble than its worth. I suppose anyone who has
>>>>> done
>>>>> anything with generating XML from Magritte could maybe provide some
>>>>> insight on any hurdles they faced, design ideas, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> I also am looking at Magritte for simplifying XML serialization in
>>>>> general. My problem overall is that I have to generate all these
>>>>> formats (XML for web service, RSS, ATOM, RDF) and I do not want to
>>>>> have to write a complex parser to even do this 1/2 way dynamically.
>>>>> Are there any other libraries out there that do this already? For
>>>>> instance, I did notice that there is that library (name escapes me)
>>>>> that lets you port your objects between Smalltalk versions by
>>>>> dumping
>>>>> to XML files, so that is somewhat close to what I need to do.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am thinking since I already have a large number of Magritte
>>>>> descriptions, I might as well expand upon that. This will also
>>>>> let me
>>>>> do things like change a schema dynamically and provide easy access
>>>>> memento objects to do things like create a preview of whatever
>>>>> format
>>>>> I am trying to produce. Thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>>>>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>>>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
>> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>
> --
> Lukas Renggli
> http://www.lukas-renggli.ch
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>

>> Are your descriptions going to still be relevant for PDF in the same
>> way they are for a web page?  Magritte descriptions usually provide a
>> GUI for entering or editing them, no?
>
> Not sure if we're talking about the same things totally. My
> descriptions have little if anything to do with the GUI. I am looking
> at adding automagic form generation in a few places, but mainly the
> forms in my application are hand-crafted right now. We do use Magritte
> in conjunction with our forms (ex: memento validation), just not to
> generate the actual form UI.

>>> Are your descriptions going to still be relevant for PDF in the same
>>> way they are for a web page?  Magritte descriptions usually provide a
>>> GUI for entering or editing them, no?
>>
>> Not sure if we're talking about the same things totally. My
>> descriptions have little if anything to do with the GUI. I am looking
>> at adding automagic form generation in a few places, but mainly the
>> forms in my application are hand-crafted right now. We do use Magritte
>> in conjunction with our forms (ex: memento validation), just not to
>> generate the actual form UI.
>
> It is easy to generate dumps of described objects to specific output
> formats. It is almost too simple to show a text exporter here:
>
>    aModel description do: [ :desc |
>      aStream
>        nextPutAll: (desc label);
>        nextPutAll: ’: ’;
>        nextPutAll: (desc toString: (desc accessor readFrom: aModel));
> cr ]
>
> For a description of this example see page 6 in  
> http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~scg/Archive/Papers/Reng07aMagritte.pdf
> .
>
> Cheers,
> Lukas
>
> --
> Lukas Renggli
> http://www.lukas-renggli.ch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>

> I don't think I expressed myself clearly.  Magritte is (as I
> understand it) a way to provide extra meta "descriptions" of how your
> objects might be presented.  Other components can take these
> components and turn them into some representation.  For example, the
> Seaside Magritte renderer takes these descriptions and makes HTML.
>
> You could create e.g. a PDF renderer that reads these descriptions and
> generates a PDF item from them.  I know that would be a lot of work,
> but once it's done one time we all have it.
>
> _______________________________________________
> SmallWiki, Magritte, Pier and Related Tools ...
> https://www.iam.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/smallwiki
>