Category Archives: GitHub

Given to Open Source: ONIX Data Library

C#, GitHub, ONIX, Open Source

The ONIX standard…huh? Am I right? What…you’ve never heard of it?!?

Yeah, well…I guess that makes sense. However, if you’ve worked on any project regarding the publishing industry, then there’s a good chance that you have heard of it. Basically, it’s the international standard for representing electronic data regarding books (along with other select media formats). Titles, prices, commentaries…most of that data is passed between companies in the ONIX format. It can be frustrating to work with at times…but work with it you must.

Strangely, though, there aren’t many tools or libraries out there which focus on it. Now, you might be saying, “Of course there are no libraries or tools out there…there are more people that you use Sanskrit than use this standard.” Well…that might be true; I’m not sure. However, there are enough people out there (including developers) who work with it; there should be something out there to help us brave few. And when I found nearly nothing for the .NET platform, I decided to make one of my own.

It was a little awkward at first during development, since I found a few platform issues regarding XML in my adventures. However, after a few weeks of work, I finally had something substantial. So, I am proud to introduce the world’s first open-source serialization/parser library for ONIX in C#, complete with a few pretty ribbons attached! It’s bound to be of some use to somebody…all 5 people who happen to use both ONIX and the .NET platform. Everyone else may say “blah”, but those scant few are going to be ecstatic. We’re going to throw a pizza party just for us, and everybody else is going to be soooo jealous.

Given to Open Source: ACE

C#, GitHub, Metadata-Driven Design, Open Source, Working Example

Over a year ago, I published an article that proposed the possibility of creating a system that could be configured to systematically download snapshots of records via a data API, catalog them for auditing purposes, and then apply that data to relational tables used in production. At the time, there was only the article about the subject matter, but there wasn’t a working example to accompany it. In order to further demonstrate the feasibility of the article’s proposal, I decided to go ahead and remedy that particular dearth.

So, after taking a few minutes out of each day to incrementally build the project, I think that the project has come along well enough to be let loose upon the world. I’ve uploaded the project to GitHub, so that it may endure for posterity. For the purpose of inspiration or amusement through ridicule, only time will tell. 🙂

Given to Open Source : Bibliophile+

Android, GitHub, Java, Mobile, Open Source

Years ago, I dabbled with the idea of developing a platform that would present trivia about literature to interested bibliophiles, like which popular songs were inspired by famous books. Specifically, I thought that it would make an entertaining mobile app. (At around the same time and unknown to me until much later, a company called Small Demons had a similar idea and a much better implementation in the form of a robust web site. Unfortunately for them and for me, though, the general idea never found a core demographic.) After creating an iOS version, I decided to target something more appropriate, and I chose an eBook platform that I was fairly familiar with: the Nook. Taking some lessons from creating my first version of it and teaching myself the Android platform, I was able to create a much more user-friendly implementation for our Nook store (though obviously still novice). It didn’t exactly turn me into a millionaire, but I was still proud of it nonetheless.

A few weeks ago, I happened to stumble on the original source code, and I decided that it was time to find it a good home, somewhere other than my old hard drive. I’ll admit that it wasn’t designed all that well, but since this was also my first real Android project, I’m inclined to forgive myself. I’ve uploaded the project to GitHub, so that it may endure for posterity. For the purpose of inspiration or amusement through ridicule, only time will tell. 🙂

Metadata-Driven Design: Building Web APIs for Dynamic Mobile Apps

GitHub, InfoQ, Metadata-Driven Design

In my third professional article, I change position from my last one regarding an intelligent API client, now focusing on creating an intelligent API server. In the article, I describe how metadata-driven design can be used to create an intelligent Web API server that (with the help of some ideas from HATEOAS) then enables a mobile app to become truly dynamic. Once again, I must give many thanks to the staff at InfoQ and Ralph Winzinger for taking the time to help with this submission. If you have any interest or stake in mobile apps or Web APIs in an enterprise environment, there’s a good chance that you’ll find something of value in it. Go check it out!

There’s also a sample C# project on GitHub that serves as a working example of the MDD Web API server described in the article. You can find it here.

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Metadata-Driven Design: Building Web APIs for Dynamic Mobile Apps
In this InfoQ article about a metadata-driven Web API server, Aaron Kendall uses this approach in order to show how one can create a mobile application that can evolve during runtime.