[Xapian-discuss] GSoC 2012

[Justin Finkelstein]

On Sun, 2012-02-19 at 21:04 +0000, Olly Betts wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:29:29AM +0000, Justin Finkelstein wrote:
> > There're two things I'd like to suggest that aren't on the list:
> > 
> >     1. An queueing system, to eliminate or work around the one-writer at
> > a time issue
> >     2. A web service front-end, handling queries via GET, CRUD
> > operations via POST containing XML
> 
> Isn't (2) essentially what Richard's restpose (http://restpose.org/)
> aims to do, except it's JSON not XML (which seems to be the modern
> trend)?


It certainly looks like it; I'm surprised I haven't seen this before -
may I suggest a link to it from xapian.org? 


> > The idea being to bring Xapian a bit more in-line with some of the other
> > search appliances and to make adoption easier.
> > I'm not sure how these would fit into the Xapian ethos, but it's
> > something I'd like to see developed.
> 
> These seem like projects on top of Xapian to me, and that seems a
> sensible separation (like how solr is a web services layer on top of
> lucene).

Absolutely. So we're looking for core Xapian projects.

> I'm happy to include work on projects like that, but starting a new
> project is potentially problematic.
> 
> If the student is engaged enough to stay involved in the longer term, it
> would work OK, but if the student doesn't hang around much after GSoC
> you have an orphaned project, which isn't really good for anyone
> involved.
> 
> Also, most students will probably do better working within some sort of
> existing structure rather than trying to start from a clean slate.

This is all understandable and I see your points on all of these
things. 
I wish I'd know about RestPost some time ago as it seems to make entry
into using Xapian much easier.