Originally posted by hulugu
Okay, I've been parsing my way through this thread and I really have to ask what can one do with metadata? If WinFS has it and BeOS had it, what did someone do with it.
OK. One example that could be implemented. You work in an insurance agency. You are the team manager that deals with 30 large companies. (Lets say Ford, NW Airlines, Paramount.) You need to review information on that account but you have maybe a half dozen people who may have hundreds of files scattered in multiple directories. (God knows we do.) The typical method users use to organize data is via a hierarchical structure. So.....
Clients ----
-------------Honda
--------------------------04
--------------------------03
--------------------------02
--------------------------01
--------------------------00
And the data paths can get even further convoluted if you are trying to organize your information into specific fields such as claims, policies, etc. With a metadatabase, esp WINFS, you can actually do searches beyond simple file names and paths. Lets go back to my example. Gathering information from this pathing nightmare can be time consuming when you are dealing with dates and filenames. Imagine these files are imbued with additional information that you can add to the metadata? So a manager no longer has to search for *Honda*.doc or *Honda*.xls They can refine their searches into a manner that can bring back information on various data types: word, excel, PowerPoint, e-mails, PDF, JPG, Access databases. And heres the kicker. It can bring back information from data files that arent known or recognized because that WINFS reads the metadata not the file itself. And since WINFS is going to be using XML it would be simple to craft additional data fields such as authors address, and IM number and if that user is currently online and display all that information in a results page. So lets say that manager is wading through this information that was returned and saw that X user who crafted the 02 policy that is up for renewal this month is currently online they could IM right there.
Even better. WINFS will be able to go beyond the local hard drive, beyond even the local server. Potentially one could search every computer in a network. In Microsofts case they will be utilizing XML along with a large feature set of APIs for WINFS. So the potential for creating apps that utilize WINFS is huge.
Metadata is not a new idea but the potential to change how we look at data is. I pray that Apple works on direct integration of WINFS with either 10.4 or 10.5 to allow searches from Longhorn systems to be expanded to Mac systems. I think WINFS is going to be a huge motivator for companies to move to Longhorn. There is a major hesitation to move to XP right now. Many companies dont see a major advantage to moving from 2K to XP. This could change in Longhorn.
Again I think I have a very basic conceptual understanding of how this works. I just havent had enough time to dive into the topic in any meaningful way. Its fascinating though. If you want more info on it:
http://www20.tomshardware.com/storage/20040129/winfs-01.html