| Object Models for Data? [message #9997] |
Tue, 30 September 1997 00:00 |
Struan Gray
Messages: 178
Registered: December 1995
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Senior Member |
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I'm about to start converting my main application to an
object-oriented version and intend to start by objectifying my data
models. Naturally I have lots of lovely low-level ideas, but because
I eventually want to write widgets which can browse, display and
manipulate any of my data sets, no matter where or on what machine
they were aquired, I want an overall data model that is robust and
flexible enough to cope with most things that I might want to throw at
it in future.
The obvious route is to objectify the HDF routines, since they
provide a standard way of describing data sets with lots of different
components, and it is easy to see how an HDF file on disk can be
converted into some sort of container object in memory. A basic set
of methods for describing, adding and extracting the object's data can
also be stolen from the HDF file routines.
My only problem (at least, in this respect ;-) is that I have a
strong suspicion that I am re-inventing the wheel, and that more
intelligent lifeforms have probably already developed a suitable
model. I have had a cursory delve into the NCSA HDF documentation and
website(s) but although the whole thing reeks of object orientation,
the end result for the user of the HDF libraries seems to be boring
old arrays and variables: ie the data stops being an object once it
leaves the disk.
Hence an appeal to the newsgroup: does anyone know of any freely
available projects or standards for the description and manipulation
of scientific data *in memory*? Would anyone be interested in trying
to put together a general object model for data in IDL applications
that could be used as a basis for shared code? My own feeling is that
a standardised data object would make it much, much simpler for IDL
(and PV-WAVE) users to share widget applications with each other, as
well as making it easier to do hip things like interface applications
to the web.
Ideas? All bouquets and brickbats gratefully received.
Struan
(struan.gray@sljus.lu.se)
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