An XML format for block designs.

[Peter Dobcsanyi]

Hi Nam-Ky,

Thank you for yor comments.

On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 03:12:44PM +1000, Nam-Ky Nguyen wrote:
> My concern about an on-line database of (block) designs is that we
> will eventually encourage the experimenters to adopt the old approach
> of designing experiments, i.e. experiment for the design (in the
> database/design catalogues). In the computer age, we should encourage
> experimenters to adopt the new approach of designing experiments, i.e.
> design for the experiment (and do not experiment for the design). This

As JP Morgan has already pointed out, the "database" and the "produce for
demand" approaches can and should be interconnected. Accordingly, the
user interface to DTRS (Design Theory Resource Server) won't be just a
simple direct connection to a database. Talking about a database only is
a bit misleading, it is going to be an "application server" using the
recent buzzword for such things. Our buzzword is "resource server"
meant to extend the scope, since we also provide plenty of online
literature.

The user (or an application program) sends a request to DTRS, how it is
served is indifferent and, more or less, transparent to the user. That
can be a result of a query to the database, the output of a program
started to generate the requested designs, or the combination of the
two. The gradual filling up the database is going to be two sided. On
one hand, it will be systematically planned by running generator programs
in the background to find particular classes of designs.  On the other
hand, it will be demand driven by caching away the results produced by
design creator programs triggered by users' requests.

As we mentioned in our announcement, we will release "software
packages for the generation and analysis of designs". We are going to
use these packages internally ourself and would like encourage the users
running them outside DTRS to send back new (not in the database yet)
designs they may find.

> (http://www.ffp.csiro.au/tigr/software/cycdesign/cycdes.htm) or Gendex
> (http://www.designcomputing.net/gendex/). Hopefully, one day the
> mentioned software will follow the open source model so that the

If I am not mistaken you are the author of one of these packages, so it
is nice to hear that coming from you :-)

It would be interesting to know what is your view using the XML external
representation of designs as one of the possible I/O formats for such
packages. Your software and similar ones are certainly welcome to
contribute to the filling up our database regardless where they are
running internally or outside.

--             ,
    Peter Dobcsanyi