metaapi: Django Meta-API - Invitation to Criticize!
binberati
This is what came to my mind a second ago (maybe two) after reading
James Bennett's blog entry 'Django tips: get the most out of generic
views'[0].
Wouldn't it be nice to have generic views (REST APIs) for:
- Filesystem operations (on *nix for a start). Loose coupling with
Python's OS module.
- Subversion interface (e.g. for keeping templates or translation under
revision control) using pysvn[1].
- RDF data (for any purpose, really!) You could store metadata about
anything, anywhere - for example using Sparta[2] or straight RDFLib[3].
Imagine the leverage of being able to define RDF triples (or even
inferential statements...) with generic views. Hey, what about
interfacing to DCMI Metadata Terms[4]? And while we're at it, why not
replace Django's URL.conf with RDF graphs hooking namespaces?
- Python Imaging Library operations[5].
- Relaying Ma.gnolia, Flickr or any other proprietary web service's API
calls to django's generic views. Google Calendar, Yahoo Finance,
YouTube... Especially the REST-oriented services would be relatively
easy to implement. How about extending URL.conf with proprietary
namespaces.
- OpenID, Geodata... Complicated or simple (a calculator?), you name
it.
I just set up a Google Code project[6]:
http://code.google.com/p/metaapi/. Something like 'A set of Django
generic views relaying to proprietary web service APIs or Python
modules'.
Please, share your views on my twisted approach. I would really
appreciate that.
Since this is all very fresh, I would really enjoy anyone to share
suggestions, thoughts, code, etc.
Best regards,
bin
[0] http://www.b-list.org/
[1] http://pysvn.tigris.org/
[2] http://www.mnot.net/sw/sparta/
[3] http://rdflib.net/
[4] http://dublincore.org/
[5] http://effbot.org/zone/pil-index.htm/
[6] http://code.google.com/p/metaapi/
Adrian Holovaty
> This is what came to my mind a second ago (maybe two) after reading
> James Bennett's blog entry 'Django tips: get the most out of generic
> views'[0].
Some of these ideas sound really cool! I'd suggest focusing on one or
two of them rather than attempting to do the whole shebang. In my
opinion, the Python Imaging Library functions as generic views would
be a really useful thing to have.
Looking forward to what you come up with! Also, once you've got
something up and running, we could add it to django.contrib if you're
interested.
Adrian
--
Adrian Holovaty
holovaty.com | djangoproject.com
Daniel Poelzleithner
> Some of these ideas sound really cool! I'd suggest focusing on one or
> two of them rather than attempting to do the whole shebang. In my
> opinion, the Python Imaging Library functions as generic views would
> be a really useful thing to have.
If such a Interface is specified, it should be flexible enough to switch
backends. In my optinion PIL has a total terrible quality when compared
to ImageMagick.
kindly regards
Daniel
Fredrik Lundh
> If such a Interface is specified, it should be flexible enough to switch
> backends. In my optinion PIL has a total terrible quality when compared
> to ImageMagick.
that's a rather broad statement, don't you think? what are you doing
with PIL, and how are you doing it?
</F>