[Developers] Changing "/topic/en" to "/en".. maybe

[Alec Flett]

On Mar 26, 2008, at 5:29 PM, Arthur van Hoff wrote:

> Hi Alec,
>
> When you update a text property you need to specify "lang":"/lang/en".
> Is that going to change to "lang":"/en"?
>
> If so, we'll have to update some of our code.


No, this does not affect the "/lang/en" namespace at all.

Alec

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: developers-bounces at freebase.com [mailto:developers-
>> bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Alec Flett
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:27 PM
>> To: For discussions about MQL,Freebase API and apps built on Freebase
>> Subject: Re: [Developers] Changing "/topic/en" to "/en".. maybe
>>
>> As there has been no objection to this, I'd like to go forward. The
>> schedule will look like this:
>>
>> 3/27 (thursday) - In sandbox, I'll add the /en namespace to point to
>> stuff in /topic/en.
>> 3/31 (monday) - I'll make the same change in production
>> Some (to be announced) date around 4/7: we'll update the code to
>> always return /en/topic_name
>>  4/30, we'll remove the /topic/en namespace from the graph.
>>
>> This means you'll be able to start using /en/<topic_name> starting
>> 3/27 on sandbox, and 3/31 on OTG.
>>
>> Alec
>>
>> On Mar 19, 2008, at 1:37 PM, Alec Flett wrote:
>>
>>> Hey everyone -
>>> So there has been some discussion internally about shortening the
>> "/
>>> topic/en" namespace down to just "/en". This is something that is
>>> being tossed around inside metaweb and I wanted to open up the
>>> discussion to the larger community to check the feasibility of
>> this.
>>> To be clear, this is a one-time change while we're still in alpha.
>> We
>>> really, really don't expect to do another system-wide change like
>>> this, especially once we're out of alpha.
>>>
>>> The primary motivations are:
>>> 1) /topic seems superfluous, and in general adds heirarchy where
>> there
>>> doesn't need to be.. it makes english names appear sooner in the
>> id,
>>> which is nice for readability. We don't think there will ever be an
>>> actually domain "/en", "/fr" or whatever.
>>>
>>> 2) shortening urls - both at freebase and on anyone else using
>> topic
>>> names in their URLs.  In particular, it makes anyone who inserts
>> ids
>>> into their urls have a more readable url.
>>>
>>> If we decide to do this, here is what would probably happen -
>> feedback
>>> is encouraged!
>>> 1) MQL would start returning "/en/topic_name" instead of
>> "/topic/en/
>>> topic_name" in queries where you say "id": null, such as:
>>> {"name": "Bob Dylan",
>>> "type": "/music/artist",
>>> "id": null}
>>>
>>> (this would return "/en/bob_dylan")
>>>
>>> 2) MQL would continue to accept "/topic/en/bob_dylan" as a valid id
>>> for some period of time (a week? a month? 3 months? that's
>> something
>>> we all need to decide)
>>>
>>> 3) During the time that the /topic/en compatibility exists, MQL
>> would
>>> also return "/topic/en/topic_name" when the /topic id is explicitly
>>> specified in the query:
>>>
>>> {"id": "/topic/en/bob_dylan", "name": null}
>>>
>>> would return
>>> {"id": "/topic/en/bob_dylan", "name": "Bob Dylan"}
>>>
>>> 4) Anyone can continue to link to http://www.freebase.com/view<id>
>>> using either /topic/en/topic_name or /en/topic_name, but freebase
>>> would do a HTTP 301 redirect to
>> http://www.freebase.com/view/en/topic_name
>>> . We'll probably support the /view/topic URL mapping forever.
>>>
>>> But of course the issue is: what will break? The big issue is
>>> obviously if people are storing freebase keys in their databases,
>> and
>>> migration during a compatibility period is impossible.
>>>
>>> Please reply on this thread with your concerns/issues or even if
>> you
>>> just think this is an awesome idea :)
>>>
>>> Alec
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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