SpecDB
It would be useful for W3C to maintain a database of all of its Technical Reports ("TR documents"), with a history of each. This could be expose this as a bibliographic service, as BibTeX or BIBO or RDF or the format we use for our spec references; the latter would be useful for ReSpec or our other spec-build systems.
This could include a front end to manage them, and an API to allow queries. The front end might include a script to extract information from a spec automatically, which would simplify populating and keeping the database up-to-date.
This could be very useful in our goal of keeping WGs on track. Down the road, we could even make nice visualization tools.
Useful Information
- spec name
- spec shortname
- subtitle
- abstract
- canonical (stable) URL
- anticipated timeline (projected dates for FPWD, LC, CR, PR, Rec)
- each spec version (including Editor's Draft)
- publication date
- dated URL
- alternate URL (e.g., IETF, WHATWG)
- Recommendation-track status
- normativity (normative or informative, e.g. spec vs. note)
- editors
- authors
- acknowledgments
- Working Group
- comments email
- bug report URL
- issue tracker (may be same as bug report URL)
- Patent Policy terms
- document license terms
- translations
- URL of each translation
- alternate format (e.g., PDF, ePUB)
- URL of each alternate format
- spec dependencies
- provenance records (eg, reference to the formal and public steps taken for the publication of that particular version, previous versions)
Useful Outputs
- API for queries on document status (internal or external)
- Document schedule and status calendar
- Bibliography or reference generator
- Spec interdependency visualizer
Useful Inputs
- Data extractor: pulls information from a spec to populate database
- Form field, for manual entry
Database
Tables
Please help with this!
Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | extra |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
spec_id | int(10) unsigned | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
spec_name | |||||
spec_shortname | |||||
Note: the content should be more structured, reusing other parts of our database. Eg, editor, author, etc, should be references to person's records, and not simply strings.
Types
Just for reference...
- int(size)
- int(size) unsigned
- tinyint(size)
- tinyint(size) unsigned
- bigint(size)
- bigint(size) unsigned
- double
- double unsigned
- binary(size)
- varbinary(size)
- tinyblob
- char(size)
- varchar(size)