long overdue: Guava, a review of James' talk

Hello!

I've posted James' slides at: http://pugs.postgresql.org/pdx/archives/
000090.html

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James was presenting on GUAVA - GUI-As-View, his PhD thesis proposal
- which was accepted. GUAVA is a new approach to MVC - defining a
user interface (the view) and then defining the model and controller
after.

The talk started with an overview of common problems facing
researchers that he works with. Often, a database is structured in a
way that makes it difficult for these researchers (domain experts) to
formulate queries on their own. They must rely on a database expert
to write reports and extract data in the way that they need.

User interfaces for database applications are designed to be used by
domain experts. The motivating question seemed to be, "Wouldn't it
be interesting if users could use the same UI to pose queries?"

The core revolves around slide #10 - a diagram showing the elements
of his design, and how they're connected. Rather than interact
directly with the physical database, the Guava approach provides an
interface to a Natural Schema database. This is what end-users would
interact with. Having a natural schema allows end-users to better
generate their own useful queries, and allows DBAs to make
performance or normalization enhancements independent of the UI.

The key link between the Natural Schema database and the physical
database is something called a "channel". Channels enable DBAs to
make needed transformations on the physical database without
impacting the UI. A series of operators are provided to make the
necessary data transformations. James went into a great deal of
detail on two, Vpartition and Unpivot operators.

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There was some talk about what community involvement James wants to
have - I believe that this discussion centered around creating
channels, and implementing the operators.

James also survived the Randal Schwartz Gauntlet of Heckling [tm].

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We had a fabulous after-talk gathering at the McMenamins near PSU.
Very good tater tots and stout-ice-cream-floats.

-selena