s.im.pl meta-metadata:
prerequisites and tools
s.im.pl serialization oodss meta-metadata
meta-metadata prereqs principles development
environment in-context expander tutorials
reference API repository community programming practices
interface ecology lab research

XML

A basic understanding of XML is needed because meta-metadata is an XML based language. If needed please see an XML tutorial.


XPath

The ability to form XPath expressions is necessary. These expressions are heavily used to retrieve data from HTML pages. XPath tutorial.

Regular Expression

Regular expression are used often in meta-metadata for specifying either URLs or parts of text. Regex tutorial.

Application Developers Only - Java

The ability to understand and program in Java, C#, and/or Objective C is crucial for creating applications using meta-metadata. The meta-metadata compiler runs in Java, and generates classes in Java, C#, and Objective C.

Recommended Tools
- Use Firefox

- Download and use the Firebug Firefox plugin.

- The XPather plugin

These tools are not necessary but I have found them helpful in authoring meta-metadata. They help when locating information in a page's HTML and forming XPath expressions.

Specifically I use the Firebug inspect tool to help identify the parts of the HTML code which contain the information I want. Then I use XPather to help write a correct and concise XPath expression.

Before there is an XPather upgrade for the latest Firefox, an alternative is the Firefinder for Firebug plugin.