If *I* were publishing data for others to USE in their own web sites (often
called a web service), I'd make the data available in one of a few ways:
- raw text -- let them format it as they see fit
- CSV a simple CSV file can hold a wealth of information, and it is easy for
the receiver to munch up the CSV into meaningful, formatted data on a web
page. I have one client who supplies me with two 5MB CSV files daily for an
almost complete update of his site contents... easy.
eg:
Poole,125
greenman,35
hv,25
libert,25
loriwinslow,25
PHPnewbie,15
tunitas,15
bob,10
creed,10
malees,10
- XML, or some other form of structured data... even structure (but not
formatted) HTML/XHTML would be great, because people could then format it to
their own taste with style sheets, of which they could optionally download a
default style sheet or "skin" from you, or create their own.
eg
<users>
<name>Poole</name><amount>125</amount>
<name>greenman</name><amount>35</amount>
<name>hv</name><amount>25</amount>
<name>libert</name><amount>25</amount>
...
</users>
or some sort of unformatted HTML table with default classes.
- formatted, branded and "designed" HTML, ready to go. I have a project on
the go at the moment, where it looks like i might provide content for free
to everyone, or at a cost to people who want to pay for me to design the
contnt specifically for them... if they want a green background and blue
text, then that's what the web service provides them each week.
It early in the morning here, so the might be plenty of other options i'm
not thinking of yet :)
Justin
on 21/09/02 4:32 AM, Lee Doolan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
>
>
> I am posting this message to the php.general newsgroup because I used
> php to construct the dynamic portion of our site and because I value
> the opinions of many people who frequently post here. I hope that
> this will not be viewed as off-topic --if it is, I will take it
> elsewhere.
>
> At affero we are beginning to think in terms of publishing certain
> data to whomsoever might wish to use it for whatever reason. Here's a
> first cut attempt to provide such a service:
>
> http://pws.affero.net/hof/topPatrons
>
>
> returns an HTML <table> ... </table> structure suitable for use as,
> say, a server side include.
>
> Another kind of data which we might publish is what we refer to as a
> 'dense reputation' or a 'reputation summary'. For an example of a
> dense reputation you can point a browser at this URL
>
> http://svcs.affero.net/user-history.php?u=Poole
>
> the dense reputation appears highlighted after the user id on the top
> line of the page.
>
>
>
> One of the things that concerns me lately is how to make data such as
> these available as widely as possible.
>
>
> I have looked in to RSS for a few days and, while I am somewhat
> confused, I have begun to come more or less to the conclusion that RSS
> is employed mainly for syndicated news feeds and probably is not
> appropriate for publishing tabular data and short strings.
>
>
> Maybe some kind of procedure call mechanism, eh? SOAP and XML-RPC
> seem to be competing technologies, though. If we support one of them,
> how many sites will be excluded from accessing the data which we wish
> to make available? Should we support both?
>
>
> XML seems attractive because it can be styled into so many different
> kind of presentations, but I just can't tell if this would be
> appropriate.
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone might be able to share thoughts or opinions
> or experience related to such issues.
>
>
>
> -lee
>
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