Fall
Conference
2009
 

The Open Web
 
Oct 29, 2009

Midgard2: Content repository for web applications

By Henri Bergius.

Abstract

Content repositories allow you to separate the actual front-end of your application from background processing tools. More than just their underlying databases, they impose common rules for data access, and keep multiple applications up-to-date on data changes through signaling. Midgard2 provides a flexible content repository that avoids the restrictions of the traditional ORM approach. And not only your PHP web application, but also to possible Python, Objective-C and C# tools you use.

This enables you to split applications into smaller, easily maintainable and scalable pieces that can be run on different systems and platforms as needed. In addition to web, the Midgard2 library can be used for desktop and mobile application development, building software that synchronizes with web services. It is based and engineered fully on the top of the desktop (GNOME) software stack. Being highly modular and having very little dependencies it scales from a note taking application to a full-blown CMS system. Combined with advanced replication capabilities it allows you to synchronize data between offline and online instances of your service.

Midgard2 is an Open Source Content Repository and it provides an objectified view to the data and services surrounding it. At the basic level it abstracts the database access (SQLite, MySql, PostgreSQL) but this is only where it all starts. Serialization & replication, managing own storage objects, multi-process access to data are all covered. The fully object-oriented (GObject-oriented) API allows you to focus on the data, not the database syntax.

Biography

Henri Bergius is a former Viking based in the Nordic country of Finland. When he is not exploring the cave cities of Georgia or running with bulls in Pamplona, Bergie works on web services built on top of the Midgard toolkit. His company Nemein provides web solutions for several major companies in Finland and abroad.

After half decade of regular web development, Henri got involved with free software in 1999 when he coordinated the public release of the Midgard content management system. Since then he has been actively working on integrating standards like RSS and Microformats into the system and traveling the world advocating for interoperation between open source CMSs.

Henri's current passion is combining web services, mobile applications and socially produced geographical data together to build useful tools for travelers and mobile companies. To this end he is working on the GeoClue library that allows mobile Linux applications to easily become geo-aware.

When duties allow, Bergie escapes the crunch to explore the hills of Lapland or rides his classic motorcycle. He is also an amateur pilot.

Fall 2009

2023-05-27
 

Association NLUUG
e-mail: info@nluug.nl