RE: ZNG: "Z39.50 Next Generation"

I am sceptical about the idea of trying to make a "mainstream protocol", if
only because "mainstream" means "simplified" which means "poor". I think we
need an upgrade of Z39.50 for libraries, documentation, full-text retrieval,
that kind of things. Let us stick to our business, and not try to conquer
the whole world.
Z39.50 was a tremendous success, and it will be hard to repeat that. So a
new protocol should somehow be built upon Z39.50, as a Z39.50 Next
Generation with backwards compatability.
I see Z39.50 like MARC or ISO2709 or ASCII: You can't throw it away, at
least not yet.

Two more remarks:

I would argue against hard-coding any external protocol (like XML) in the
new protocol. 

I am a partisan of the Scan functionality, and I will defend it!!


Pieter van Lierop
Geac
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Kent [mailto:ajk@mds.rmit.edu.au]
> Sent: vendredi 13 juillet 2001 01:58
> To: ZIG
> Subject: Re: ZNG: "Z39.50 Next Generation"
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 04:20:11PM -0400, Ray Denenberg wrote:
> > The group has developed
> > specifications for a new web service called ZNG, "Z39.50 
> Next Generation".
> > (Earlier, it had been known as ZML: "Z39.50 over XML".)
> 
> This is *wonderful* news to me (and wonderful timing - I was asked to
> look into implementing a web service for our Z39.50 server 2 
> days ago).
> I have looked through the page you gave and it all seems to 
> make sense.
> Is there anything more concrete yet? Any proposed WSDL files for
> example? One of my 10 urgent jobs to do (:-) is to build a prototype.
> 
> For CQL, I would be happy to put up the exact CCL-based grammar that
> we currently support for example and show the tweaks we have done to
> bind it closely as possible to Z39.50 as a discussion point. I am glad
> CCL has not been taken verbatim - the version of the standard I have
> was rather vague in spots (not even a BNF grammar!)
> 
> Anyway, I would certainly be interested in having a go at implementing
> a prototype web service based on whatever exists. I cannot guarantee
> resourcing at present (so my contribution may be bursty), but I think
> this is a *big* step forward for Z39.50.
> 
> Alan
>

Received on Friday, 13 July 2001 08:21:46 UTC