[maemo-users] Postal address in Contacts?

[From: Simon Budig]

Mark (wolfmane at gmail.com) wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Simon Budig <simon at budig.de> wrote:
> > No, I maintain, that import and export conceptually is a special case of
> > sync.
> 
> ...and you are wrong.
> 
> By definition, sync is the process of making sure that two or more
> locations contain the *same* up-to-date files:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_synchronization

*Files*? I thought we were talking about database records of contact
information? I guess you were confused when you picked this link?

> Again, including import/export functionality in a sync app does NOT
> mean that import/export is a subset of sync.

Database 1 is some binary blob, stored by EDS on the disk that
represents a set of contact adresses.

Database 2 is a not yet existing file on disk, which by convention is
interpreted as conatining zero contact adresses.

A sync application has plugins to talk to database 1 and database 2.

The sync application does its magic thing, the plugin for database 2
queries for a name for the not yet really existing file on disk.

While doing the sync operation the plugin for database 1 knows about
lots of contact adresses, the plugin for database 2 knows none, the sync
algorithm decides that it would be best to store the contact adresses in
database 2 as well.

The plugin for database 2 receives lots of contact adresses and chooses
to use a csv representation for the on disk storage of the contact
adresses.

The net result: a previously not existing, CSV structured file that
contains the contact adresses of Database 1.

I'd call that export. And since it is a sync algorithm doing this, the
sync concept is a superset of the export concept.


No, it is not easy, it is not convenient, it is not straightforward, it
needs some conceptual thinking to view it like this, but the concept is
sound.

Later you might even want to "sync" new Adresses in EDS-database 1 into
your CSV "database". If plugin 2 is good it might actually work. Hence
sync does more than export.

Bye,
        Simon
-- 
              simon at budig.de              http://simon.budig.de/