YAZ 1.8 released -- now with added ZOOM

Hi all,

Just to let you know that version 1.8 of the YAZ toolkit is now available, 
including our first version of the C language  binding for the ZOOM (Z39.50 
Object-Orientation Model) API. It can be fetched from www.indexdata.dk/yaz/.

YAZ has become a very popular toolkit over the years, but it has always 
been suffering from our lack of courage to define a good, simple, 
high-level API for client programmers. That's one reason we were so excited 
when Mike Taylor picked up the ball and proposed ZOOM 
(http://zoom.z3950.org/). ZOOM does not yet provide access to all of the 
Z39.50 protocol, but it does cover the requirements of the vast majority of 
current applications, and it has room to grow.

The toolkit includes compiler-generated interface structures and encoders 
for the full ASN.1 specification of Z39.50-1995 plus most subsequent 
additions. In addition, the compiler itself is included if you need to use 
non-standard extensions or data structures. There is, in other words, 
*complete* support for the client and server roles of Z39.50. There has 
always been a friendly high-level API for the server side, but client 
developers have been required to know *a lot* about Z39.50 before they started.

ZOOM changes all that, and to us, it is one of the most exciting members of 
the ZNG "family" of initiatives. It addresses both the complexity of Z39.50 
and its perceived unfriendliness to modern programming environments, while 
still maintaining full wire compatibility with existing Z39.50 servers. 
Because it *is* a high-level API, it will also lend itself very well to 
multi-protocol toolkits that support both Z39.50 and new, XML-based 
protocols.. that, we feel, is the only realistic migration path for Z39.50 
if there is a desire to leave ASN.1/BER behind in the future.

Developers should beware that ZOOM, and the C language binding in 
particular, *is* a work in progress, and the specifications (and our 
implementation) may change ove rthe course of the next few months. However, 
because the API is relatively simple, we also aexpect that any changes may 
be easily rolled into existing applications, so please do try it out, and 
let us know how you like it!

There is also a ZOOM Perl language binding available for YAZ, in addition 
to the many other APIs built on top of YAZ by ourselves and others. We 
expect to see a lot more of those pop up over the next months.

All the best,

--Sebastian

Received on Thursday, 25 October 2001 10:52:27 UTC