Comments on: Digital library chugging along on Rails

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:55:37 +0000

It’s a relational model. The Rails magic takes care of the id’s and join tables and so forth, all you really have to do is tell it about the relationships (play belongs_to :author) and create the columns in the db.

I’m sure ASP is also capable of more sophisticated database arrangements (probably with MS-SQL Server), but it’s probably also extra complicated. I’ve sufferred through an MS-SQL install once, and found it painful.

By: washtublibrarian

washtublibrarian — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:18:11 +0000

I hear ya … I’m working on a Mac most of the time, too, but our department is very much about the Microsoft products. Which is fine…ASP was very flexible for what we needed. I had a real desire to make the database more relational (could only implement a flat file with lookup tables for controlled vocab terms), though, which wasn’t really possible in any of the documentation I read — did you use a flat file, lookup tables, or a relational model?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:27:55 +0000

Thanks! I think your digital library looks great, too. I’m not familiar with the dark bowels of ASP.NET/VB.NET when it comes to developing web apps, but it certainly appears to be a viable alternative if you swing that way. As a mostly-Mac user, I didn’t really consider it for our project.

By: washtublibrarian

washtublibrarian — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:00:49 +0000

Great stuff! Thanks for the play-by-play…if my Digital Libraries class had happened across your post a few months ago, we might have picked up the ROR idea, too! Instead, we made the architecture in ASP.NET/VB.NET, which I have mixed feelings about. Wish I had developed the skills programming in a non-proprietary system (say, PHP or Ruby) but using ASP.NET really made the fast pace feasible to realize the goal…programming a digital library framework from the ground up in two weeks. Ugh. In any case, our DL is up at http://bfhsmuseum.bfn.org — we just finished it in May.

By: dystmesis » Blog Archive » Horn-tooting, for fun and profit

dystmesis » Blog Archive » Horn-tooting, for fun and profit — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:26:30 +0000

[...] However, I’m briefly popping my head out of the burrow to engage in a little shameless self-promotion. I’d like to call the attention of the reader to two things I’ve been working on lately. First, you can check out my article in this month’s Library Journal, “Shoestring Digital Library”. It’s based on my experiences building a prototype digital library using Ruby on Rails (detailed in an earlier post) and provides some ideas for building digital libraries using software from outside the usual pool of suspects. [...]

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 06:39:13 +0000

Very good post. And very impressive database as well. I agree with you about the limitations of Greenstone. I used it for a similar project, and it was OK - but clearly didn’t have the same capabilities of RoR.

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 03:08:33 +0000

This is bloody awesome. I am deeply impressed.

And amused that beating things with rocks is now a meme. But mostly impressed.