Author Archives: Dan Rabin
Information Patterns: series introduction
Every time a new data format spec hits my inbox, I get a little twinge of dread. Such documents are often enormous. They’re written in standardese (often badly). They’re usually written by committees. They go through a maze of twisty … Continue reading
Quick addendum about the Chandler Repository
If my brief article about the Chandler Repository caught your interest, you might want to check out Andi’s blog, in which he discusses some of the design and implementation issues. Accounts of software design from the time of implementation are … Continue reading
The Chandler Repository
I spent a few hours yesterday in the company of Andi Vajda, lead developer of the data repository component of the Open Source Applications Foundation’s Chandler project. We talked about the technical details of the repository. The Chandler repository is … Continue reading
Scott Rosenberg’s Dreaming in Code [book pointer]
Scott Rosenberg‘s Dreaming in Code is the best journalistic portrayal of software development that I’ve ever read. The romantic cliché of the lone introverted genius shaping masterpieces through many midnights of unfathomable incantations is mercifully absent. Rosenberg follows the Open … Continue reading
Kent’s Data and Reality [book pointer]
Let me kick off this blog by pointing to William Kent’s classic book Data and Reality. Lots of books will teach you how to process data with particular technologies, but Kent’s book goes deeper. He shows in chapter after chapter … Continue reading
Welcome!
Welcome to Information in Rotation! As I write this note in December 2006, there are a couple of snappy phrases that loom large in describing what we expect from the use of data on the World Wide Web: The Semantic … Continue reading