Re: lynx-dev downloading and metadata

[Al Gilman]

At 11:37 PM 2002-04-27 , you wrote:
>At 04:08p -0400 04/27/2002, Thomas Dickey didst inscribe upon an 
>electronic papyrus:
>
>>On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 12:45:24PM -0700, Walter Ian Kaye wrote:
>>  > Speaking of downloading, I've wondered about something.
>>  >
>>  > If a server sends a Last-Modified header with a file, can that be
>>  > used to set the file's modification date when it's downloaded?
>>
>>I suppose so - but browsing around and looking at the related info, I
>>haven't found the last-modified item to be very reliable.
>
>Is that because it wasn't designed to be?
>Is there any other way to get that metadata?
>
>
>>  > And if so, could that be extended so that additional headers supply
>>  > more metadata?
>>
>>for instance?
>
>For instance, all of a filesystem's metadata. (Some ask why; I ask why not.)
>
>
>At 08:55p -0400 04/27/2002, Al Gilman didst inscribe upon an 
>electronic papyrus:
>
>>[talking through my hat] Are you a customer for rsync?  for SRB?
>>
>>http://www.npaci.edu/DICE/SRB/
>
>Never heard of it (them?), but it looks kinda interesting.
>
>
>>Like Tom, I wouldn't invest a lot in trusting what webservers give 
>>you for Last-Modified.
>
>Maybe it's time to define a set of file metadata headers?
>It's something I've often thought about (and even scribbled about somewhere).
>Like, "FileMeta-Date-Modified:" and "FileMeta-Mac-Creator:" etc.
>

This is a hot topic.  The W3C is promoting the Semantic Web as the 
data-integration platform for doing all this.  The jury is out whether it will 
catch on.  But something will.  Lynx would do well to follow and not try to 
lead in this area, however.  The metadata manager is a co-routine that 
interoperates with Lynx by message passing.  Lynx says "whazzat?" and passes a 
content fragment and a context trace.  The context trace recapitulates 
part:whole arcs and also those generic:specific or is_a arcs known.  Metadata 
Manager says "Greek for hot dog" or "Greek to me!" in reply.  Or asks for more 
context, in which case we iterate.

It's called data repositories in the single instance case and data mediation or 
schema mediation in the networking-the-world case.

The schema mediation function is a matter of building a working, interoperable 
web of connections between the metadata everybody has and everybody has spelled 
out differently.

One of my favorite examples in this domain is the following:

 Model-Based Mediation with Domain Maps
 http://www.sdsc.edu/~ludaesch/Paper/icde01.html

Al

>
>-Walter
>
>
>
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