XRX:The Metadata Registry Example

21 October 2008Jeremy Sutton

Matt Steele

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Introduction

Both of us work for Genesis10’s CAP program and are currently consulting at a local financial services organization.

• Jeremy Sutton– Saint John’s University 2008 – Computer Science– Technical analyst working on Metadata Registry

• Matt Steele– Saint John’s University 2008 – International Relations /

Economics– Business/data analyst working on knowledge capture and

metadata for a data warehouse– Pushing to expand the use of the Metadata Registry

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Metadata Registry

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Standards-based design

Concepts:• Web-based• Semantics• Enterprise

vocabulary• REST & Persistent

URIs• Tree database• Every query as a

service• XML

interoperability with other systems

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XForms: Screen Capture

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XForms: Advanced interface features

• AJAXy features without the mess

• “Suggest” example:

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XForms: Easy interface development

Example: Date picker is one line of code; no javascript

needed<xf:bind nodeset="instance('my-task')/Completion-Date" type="xs:date"/>

<xf:input ref="instance('my-task')/completion-date" bind="closed”>

<xf:label>Completion Date</xf:label>

</xf:input>

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XQuery Example: Glossary report

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Learning experience

• Resources

XForms

XQuery

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First CRUD (create/read/update/delete)

• Deconstructed existing project (task manager) to base components to understand the architecture

• Built a blog application• Took one week

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Limitations

• Browser support– Plugins are needed to work with current browsers

• Firefox add-in works elegantly• Internet Explorer 6 requires Picoforms• Client-side java-based interpreters exist but are bulky

• Not widely known– Standards are new– Pushes against conventional apps, relational

databases, etc

• Limited commercial examples

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Advantages

• Simple to learn• See results very quickly• Very powerful searching with minimal code• Does not use RDB architecture• Open XML platform for data I/O• Easily adaptable to many tool needs• Logical organization of data (hierarchies,

URIs)• Easily de-buggable• Easy web apps

Thank you!