Re: The AF war diary

Lars,

Thanks for doing the effort!

Am 28.01.2011 um 10:52 schrieb Lars Heuer:

> Hi Robert,
> 
> [...]
>> Let's turn things around! Why don't you create a RDBMS application
>> with some code and put it online. I would be curious to see the data
>> schema
> [...]
> 
> The DB schema of the source for the TM is:
> 
>    CREATE TABLE war_diary (ReportKey varchar(255), Date varchar(255),
>    Type varchar(255), Category varchar(255), TrackingNumber
>    varchar(255), Title text, Summary text, Region varchar(255),
>    AttackOn varchar(255), ComplexAttack varchar(255), ReportingUnit
>    varchar(255), UnitName varchar(255), TypeOfUnit varchar(255),
>    FriendlyWIA varchar(255), FriendlyKIA varchar(255), HostNationWIA
>    varchar(255), HostNationKIA varchar(255), CivilianWIA
>    varchar(255), CivilianKIA varchar(255), EnemyWIA varchar(255),
>    EnemyKIA varchar(255), EnemyDetained varchar(255), MGRS
>    varchar(255), Latitude varchar(255), Longitude varchar(255),
>    OriginatorGroup varchar(255), UpdatedByGroup varchar(255), CCIR
>    varchar(255), Sigact varchar(255), Affiliation varchar(255),
>    DColor varchar(255), Classification varchar(255));
> 
> Obviously, it is not a well designed schema, though. ;)

Yes, not a good schema. I see better now in which direction the wind is blowing.

> Anyway, we already have web interfaces to the DB, i.e.:
> <http://warlogs.owni.fr/> and <http://213.251.145.96/iraq/diarydig/>.
> 
> The latter is also available as Open Source project:
> <https://github.com/yourcelf/afgexplorer>

> 
> [...]
>> i would like to compare development time
> [...]
> 
> Which development time? The development time to create the AfgExplorer
> or to create the topic map from the above mentioned schema? I don't
> know how long it took to create the explorer, but creating the topic
> map from the RDBMS source would take ca. 15min (see below for a
> comparison of the source and the generated topic map).

The development time between those two is not so different, in particular since the latter project by yourceld also generalized its effort. I had solutions in mind where the relational features of the storing technology are put to use. That is where Topic Maps has a competitive edge over RDBMS (as any semantic technology) since it has higher code reusability and better semantic flexibility.

Robert