Another Data Library

One outcome of the discussion at the Finili Developer Summit was one more library to add to the list — this one not so much a data library, but a document library. The “Re” library is meant to contain the mission statement, documentation, and other documents related to the project, but not used as data by the project and not created by programs in the project. Files in the Re library are not accessible as data to programs in the project, but are accessible in their entirety as documents, for example, to be added to a page layout or converted to another file format, or as templates, into which output from the project’s programs may be incorporated to create new documents.

The Re library might also contain project-level metadata, such as a project title. This kind of item is presumably accessible in some manner for use in the programs.

Re

["About"] Documents. This includes descriptive documents related to the project and other documents, media, and document templates that may be used in the project as documents rather than as data.

The Dog Ate My Data

The line to remember from the discussion at finds2011 was “The dog ate my data.” One of the stated goals of Finili is to produce more accurate results. One of the classic errors in handling data is leaving out part of the data. We heard some wild examples of ways this can happen. The one that sticks in my mind is the story where one disk was missing, perhaps stolen, from a disk array, resulting in the loss of the records that were stored on that disk. There were many other stories, but from the end user’s point of view, they were all variations of the same excuse. You might as well be saying, “The dog ate my data.”

Regardless of the specific cause, errors won’t slip through undetected so often if there is a way for the programmer to immediately see that something is off. We think we can make that happen with real-time data visualizations that display while the program is processing the data. These would take the place of the hourglass icon that some programs display while they are running. They would show, in a compressed form, what the program is doing with the data, like an oscilloscope, or perhaps, as someone suggested, as a kind of live infographic. Infographics are part of our objective anyway, so why would we withhold them until the end of the process?

There were many signs of progress at finds2011, but the boldness of this one discussion sums it all up. If a group of people can discuss Finili and the fine points of the way it might work, it shows that the design of Finili is far enough along that it is starting to look solid. The most difficult work might still be ahead, but at least at this point we are all assured that we are working on, and talking about, the same thing.

Finili Developer Summit 2011 Plymouth Meeting

This year’s Finili Developer Summit will be held in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, the same location as last year, on the afternoon of September 10. Discussion items this year will focus especially on syntax and style, though any topic related to the project could come up. There will be a review of the developments in syntax since last year, as well as a discussion of the recently hot issue of aliases. Another topic that may turn out to be more important than it seems at first blush is a review of the technical, compatibility, and security issues surrounding constant values.

The Summit also provides a chance to review recent work and reflect on how far we have come in the one year since the first summit, last year.