Trying Nokogiri XML Parser for Ruby

Bumped into a few blogs talking about how Nokogiri was faster than REXML for Ruby XML parsing. My OMG SysML XMI to ISO STEP AP233 XML converter demonstrations are taking so long that I can't run them live during the demo - up to 8 minutes for a large example SysML diagram. So, I'm modifying the converter to use Nokogiri in the hopes that I'll be able to do the demos live in the future. My first small test showed an 80 percent improvement ... fingers crossed that holds for the real converter.

Update - having problem with XML namespaces. Only xpath method seems to understand them, so after converting from REXML to Nokogiri my converter actually takes longer to run.

IDIOM - An ontology-centric IT Framework

I've been working in an ISO committee for many years and have been trying to convince it to adopt the same IT that the rest of industry uses. It appears that's finally coming to pass (small hurrah heard here).

The committee is called Industrial Data so I came up with the name 'Industrial Data Integrated Ontologies and Models' or IDIOM. Actually, came up with the name 3-4 years ago on one of my many cross-Atlantic flights when my laptop battery died. The core point of the whole exercise is to base a suite of inter-related IT capabilities (process models, SOA, etc) around a core of concepts that are formally specified in logic-based ontologies.

We've done the basic developing on the futurearch wiki (at wikispaces.com, which is a nice free service). Note that although 'Industrial Data' is in the name, there is absolutely nothing limiting how this IT Framework can be used.

More to come ...