[ZDP] Re: [Zope] object modification date - how ?

[Pavlos Christoforou]

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Christopher Petrilli wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 15, 1999 at 04:50:21PM -0500, Ken Manheimer wrote:

> > I don't know if this fits into the scheme that you all are heading
> > towards, but i have to say - hierarchies are good for views into data,
> > but not for the underlying data organization.  True hierarchical data
> > structures are too limited - you can't have stuff situated in multiple
> > places.  I'd expect it better to go with something like sets of keywords
> > for identifying where an item belongs in the hierarchy, and use a preset
> > hierarchy to organize the presentation.
> 
> I agree with Ken here, why shouldn't some questions appear in mutliple
> sections?  Some DTML questions might also be SQLMethod questions, or
> Image questions.  If you label the question with a set of keywords, then
> you can automatically include it in multiple sections.
> 
> Obviously this breaks the current XML structure :-) But what else am I
> here for but to make everyon'es life difficult.

A hierarchical structure is nice because it maps directly onto Zope's
object system. Thus you can use Zope's through the web gui to modify, cut
and paste your entries etc. It was Zope's object model that influenced the
design. The xml part is a useful feature that will allow the exporting
and importing of xml formatted FAQ's and at a later stage allow convertion
into other formats.

Additionally the FAQ tool is intented to be collaborative, and a
hierarchical structure makes it easy to delegate permissions and
responsibilities to different maintainers.

Nevertheless I see your point about questions belonging into multiple
sections. So what do the zdp folk propose to do? 

One thing I have in mind is to revert to a previous version of the DTD
where an xml faq doc is composed of entries alone, and subelements of the
entries indicate the section, subsection etc that the entry belongs to, in
line with Ken's suggestion. However mapping such a structure into a useful
Zope hierarchy will not be a simple matter. I guess if Zope supported
links then we could have all the entries in a Zope folder and section
folders could contain appropriate links into the entries folder.

Also I would like to avoid including information about the order of the
entries or sections in the xml document. Just think of the trouble the
maintainer would have to go everytime there was a need for renumbering.
Whereas if the order of the FAQ entries was derived from the order of
their appearance in the FAQ, then including new entries would be a simple
matter of pasting the new entry in the appropriate position. Alternatively
we could include the order in the xml and have a small script to
resequence it when new entries are added.

Suggestions?

Pavlos