Information Overload on GiP Changes

[Jeremy Nicoll - ml get_iplayer]

Budgie <ajebay at errichel.co.uk> wrote:

>First my grateful thanks for the massive amount of work which 
>dinkypumpkin and others have put into GiP.  I have made constant use of 
>--pvr facility, mainly for radio, over the last two years and am most 
>grateful for the work which has brought my family and me a great deal of 
>pleasure.  I too am deeply troubled by the loss of this facility.
>
>I have been following the fast moving discussion and developments of 
>fall back options but regret have not been able to keep up.  In fact I 
>am left at starting gate.  Please could somebody point me to where I can 
>find out what exactly is Nitro API and where does it fit in with BBC.

NITRO is the new way that apps (including internal BBC ones) ask questions
of the database(s) of programmes etc and get answers back.  So for example
when you use the BBC website to search for all dramas, behind the scenes the
process is being handled by programmes following NITRO protocols.

It's irrelevant to us at the moment because- according to the BBC developers
website - no-one outside the BBC is beung granted access to write their own
code to interrogate that system directly.


>Also I see references to JSON.  OK, JavaScript Object Notation but what 
>does it mean to me

Nothing unless you're a programmer.  It's a way of representing an
arbitrarily complicated data structure (eg a list of lists of lists of some
sets of information) in one long string of characters.  That string of
characters can be sent from one computer to another - eg as the answer to a
Nitro query - then the program that receives it can rebuild the list of
lists of lists... and manipulate it.

It's an alternative to representing a list of lists of lists... in an XML
file.


-- 
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.