Re: Thoughts on the way to school...

Hi Dave

Thanks for your response.

1.  If memaid imported/exported xml then I could make use of the wide 
range of existing xml-aware tools - editors, databases, xsl2html 
transforms, etc.  The format of the memaid .txt files is so close to xml 
anyway, although I accept your point with respect to Joe User.  I regret 
my use of the word proprietary - what I wanted to express was that 
memaid exports to an independant syntax rather than an available one 
(i.e. xml).  It is not so much a case of getting the data out into xml, 
but of getting my data in.  I need to organize my data hierarchically as 
there is so much of it - the flat list of items provided by the KMemAid 
interface is quite difficult for me to work with.  If I could import xml 
then I could use a range of tools to create and manipulate the data and 
then simply pass in into KMemAid for repetitions.

2.  The desire to support Joe User needs no explanation.  However, by 
supporting xml or sql backends you would *also* empower people like 
myself who have a wide range of computing skills. 

3.  I'm sorry if I gave offence in the snippet below - I didn't mean to 
imply some dictatorial ambition on your part, whereby I expected to 
receive a pay-or-lose-your-data ultimatum!  If I store my items in xml I 
can both use KMemAid and format the data using XSLT into 'notes' for 
studying purposes.  If I have to move my data between memaid's format 
and other formats then normalizing becomes a nightmare.

>- I feel
>extremely uncomfortable investing precious time creating items that are
>stored in a highly 'proprietary' format.
>  
>

Ahem. /* no comment */

In providing K/MemAid you are making a great contribution to students 
such as myself and this is highly appreciated.  My frustrations arise 
because I desparately want to use Memaid but, as I say, find it 
difficult to manage large quantities of information in the available 
formats.

Best regards,

Richard Hoberman


David Calinski wrote:

>On Saturday 11 of October 2003 12:56, Richard in Public wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi All
>>
>>About to rush off to (law) school and wanted to put out the following:
>>The major limitation of memaid, from my point of view, is item
>>management.  The interface is very limited and the text file does not
>>lend itself to manual editing.
>>    
>>
>
>You actually *can* manually edit file with items - see elements.txt, there is 
>even short manual inside.
>You can edit question/answers (and even 'magic' data (e.g. last grade, 
>intervals, etc.) - if you know what are you doing) and memaid will read it 
>instead of elements.bin if you delete elements.bin.
>
>elements.bin doesn't use a propietary format - is well documented 
>(unfortunately it's all in C) and open - you, and all people, are free to 
>improve it.
>I don't hide any informations about memaid - if something is undocummented 
>it's because I simply don't have time to write manuals.
>All code in memaid is open and you are even free to use it in commercial 
>products.
>
>elements.bin format is not very friendly to a human eye, as it's optimized for 
>machine, not for human.
>If memaid doesn't find elements.bin it tries to open elements.txt which 
>contains *the same* data as elements.bin but in more human-friendly format.
>(still more machine-friendly than XML, IMHO.)
>
>  
>
>>I'd really like to see both XML and SQL backends for this (...)
>>    
>>
>
>I am not sure if I know what are you asking for. Please correct me if I will 
>stray from topic or don't answer your questions/worries.
>
>It's very easy to convert element.txt to XML format (I think I could write 
>such script in a few minutes).
>If more people would want memaid to store data in XML format - or somebody 
>will persuade me it has some real benefit for a common user - I can code it, 
>and memaid would use XML.
>But in the meantime - if somebody really needs XML - such external script is 
>very easy to make, I don't see any problem.
>I prefer to make modules (for rarely used features, especially used only by a 
>small amount of users) instead of packing all features in memaid itself and 
>bloating it.
>And if XML format would be used only by a small percent of users - it should 
>be in external module (e.g. script), not in binary itself, IMHO.
>(Or I miss something? Why Joe user would want to have memaid data in XML 
>format? I think Joe user cares more about how long memaid starts.)
>
>About SQL - once again - I believe Joe user doesn't use any database.
>At the same time it should be easy to make a script that would play with SQL 
>based on element.txt
>(BTW: from a script writter point of view: I believe current elements.txt is 
>much simpler to use than XML.)
>
> 
>  
>
>>- I feel
>>extremely uncomfortable investing precious time creating items that are
>>stored in a highly 'proprietary' format.
>>    
>>
>
>Ahem. /* no comment */
>
>  
>
>>Apologies if I've overlooked anything obvious.  My time is sooooo
>>limited right now :-(
>>    
>>
>
>Same here. :-(
>Please let me know why you need (if you need) XML.
>Export to XML format should be very easy to make. Import from XML also 
>shouldn't be a problem. I just need to be persuaded why bother with XML at 
>all in memaid itself.
>
>Dave
>
>
>
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>  
>



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