My first step in my quest for automation was to find a program that helped me create shopping lists. I bought a copy of SimplyShopping, which has worked pretty well for what it does. What I like about this program is that it helps you print aisle-by-aisle shopping lists, which really speed grocery shopping up tremendously. What I dislike about it is that there's no end-to-end workflow where I can simply list the recipes I want to make for the week and have it print out a shopping list.

I thought of taking the concepts that I like in SimplyShopping and writing a new app that does everything I want it to do. I think I'll eventually do this. But the first thing I need to do is figure out a good data model for a recipe. And once I enter the recipe into my app, I'd like to be able to share it with other people. And what better way to do that then to start with a community-accepted XML format for recipes?

I searched for XML Schema Recipe and happened upon RecipeML, which, based on its copyright, appears to have been around since 1999. They have a DTD but no schema, and the last time the DTD was updated was Nov 2000. Their gallery of applications links to a single app, whose web page no longer exists.

Another search for Recipe Sharing XML lead me to the Recipe Sharing Protocol Specification, which talks a lot about exchanging data, but very little about how to model a recipe in XML. They refer to something called RSPML, but I can't find that documented anywhere.

Then there's RecipeBook XML, which has a DTD and several sample recipes. This format uses mixed content, which makes me wonder how easy it'd be to program against.

Beyond finding an acceptable data model for sharing recipes, the next problem would be to agree on a vocabulary for units of measure. I don't think it'll be possible to come up with a list of ingredient names that everyone would agree upon, so the software processing the recipes would have to deal with that.

What do you think? Is this an intractable problem? If not, does anyone want to work on this with me? I think it'd be a fun project.

My first step in my quest for automation was to find a program that helped me create shopping lists. I bought a copy of SimplyShopping, which has worked pretty well for what it does. What I like about this program is that it helps you print aisle-by-aisle shopping lists, which really speed grocery shopping up tremendously. What I dislike about it is that there's no end-to-end workflow where I can simply list the recipes I want to make for the week and have it print out a shopping list.

I thought of taking the concepts that I like in SimplyShopping and writing a new app that does everything I want it to do. I think I'll eventually do this. But the first thing I need to do is figure out a good data model for a recipe. And once I enter the recipe into my app, I'd like to be able to share it with other people. And what better way to do that then to start with a community-accepted XML format for recipes?

I searched for XML Schema Recipe and happened upon RecipeML, which, based on its copyright, appears to have been around since 1999. They have a DTD but no schema, and the last time the DTD was updated was Nov 2000. Their gallery of applications links to a single app, whose web page no longer exists.

Another search for Recipe Sharing XML lead me to the Recipe Sharing Protocol Specification, which talks a lot about exchanging data, but very little about how to model a recipe in XML. They refer to something called RSPML, but I can't find that documented anywhere.

Then there's RecipeBook XML, which has a DTD and several sample recipes. This format uses mixed content, which makes me wonder how easy it'd be to program against.

Beyond finding an acceptable data model for sharing recipes, the next problem would be to agree on a vocabulary for units of measure. I don't think it'll be possible to come up with a list of ingredient names that everyone would agree upon, so the software processing the recipes would have to deal with that.

What do you think? Is this an intractable problem? If not, does anyone want to work on this with me? I think it'd be a fun project.

My first step in my quest for automation was to find a program that helped me create shopping lists. I bought a copy of SimplyShopping, which has worked pretty well for what it does. What I like about this program is that it helps you print aisle-by-aisle shopping lists, which really speed grocery shopping up tremendously. What I dislike about it is that there's no end-to-end workflow where I can simply list the recipes I want to make for the week and have it print out a shopping list.

I thought of taking the concepts that I like in SimplyShopping and writing a new app that does everything I want it to do. I think I'll eventually do this. But the first thing I need to do is figure out a good data model for a recipe. And once I enter the recipe into my app, I'd like to be able to share it with other people. And what better way to do that then to start with a community-accepted XML format for recipes?

I searched for XML Schema Recipe and happened upon RecipeML, which, based on its copyright, appears to have been around since 1999. They have a DTD but no schema, and the last time the DTD was updated was Nov 2000. Their gallery of applications links to a single app, whose web page no longer exists.

Another search for Recipe Sharing XML lead me to the Recipe Sharing Protocol Specification, which talks a lot about exchanging data, but very little about how to model a recipe in XML. They refer to something called RSPML, but I can't find that documented anywhere.

Then there's RecipeBook XML, which has a DTD and several sample recipes. This format uses mixed content, which makes me wonder how easy it'd be to program against.

Beyond finding an acceptable data model for sharing recipes, the next problem would be to agree on a vocabulary for units of measure. I don't think it'll be possible to come up with a list of ingredient names that everyone would agree upon, so the software processing the recipes would have to deal with that.

What do you think? Is this an intractable problem? If not, does anyone want to work on this with me? I think it'd be a fun project.