[Versa] Experimenting with Versa via IRC (and #versa channel)

[Uche Ogbuji]

I created 

irc://irc.freenode.net/versa (#versa on irc.freenode.net).

For IRC discussion of Versa.

Chime has an IRC bot on #4suite (irc://irc.freenode.net/4suite) that
allows easy experimentation with Versa.  A sample session:

<uche> .varBind chimeziesFoaf
@"http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf"
<Emeka> Variable chimeziesFoaf bound to Resource
<uche> .query $chimeziesFoaf "type(foaf:Person)"
<Emeka> Querying against 72 triples
<Emeka> set([u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#Uche>',
u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#MJB>',
u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#chime>',
u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#Micah>',
u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#SBP>',
u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#EMiller>',
u'<http://copia.ogbuji.net/files/FOAF/chimezie.rdf#Christopher>'])
<uche> .query $chimeziesFoaf "type(foaf:Person) - foaf:name -> *"
<Emeka> Querying against 72 triples
<Emeka> [u'Mike J. Brown', u'Eric Miller', u'Sean B. Palmer', u'Chimezie
Ogbuji', u'Christopher Schmidt', u'Uche Ogbuji', u'Micah Dubinko']

It includes some really nice features, but for this list the most
interesting is help on Versa functions.  e.g.:

<uche> .help filter
<Emeka> filter(list, string, [string, [...]])
<Emeka> filter converts the first argument into a list (the source
list).  The second and following arguments are strings that are
dynamically evaluated as Versa queries.  The context for these
evaluations are the items from the source list taken in turn.  If all
these evaluations return true, then the resource is added to the result
list.

It's a really nice framework for experimenting with Versa.

Emeka is currently on #4suite.  Chime, could you add Emeka to #versa as
well?

Note: Chime's original Emeka announcement is here:

http://copia.ogbuji.net/blog/2005-07-18/Emeka

-- 
Uche Ogbuji                               Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net                    http://fourthought.com
http://copia.ogbuji.net                   http://4Suite.org
Use CSS to display XML, part 2 - http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/x-dw-x-xmlcss2-i.html
XML Output with 4Suite & Amara - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2005/04/20/py-xml.html
Use XSLT to prepare XML for import into OpenOffice Calc - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-oocalc/
Schema standardization for top-down semantic transparency - http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think31.html