Re: Positioning Z39.50

> 
> Is there anywhere we can get to descriptions of what people are actually using
> explain for currently and what the proposed usage would be. Hand on heart, I
> think I (at FD) use it much more as a support/debugging tool to try and figure
> out why some target is behaving the way it is than as a means of populating our
> query-rewriting database. 

Responding to this (rather than the Subject of this thread), this is I believe
what Ray is also asking (parphrasing):
   1. what problem should Explain solve
   2. what do people actually need.

  THe answer for me to (1) is all the information any client
needs to run a Z39.50 session against an arbitrary server/database.
  
  (2) is why I asked are we starting over? Do we figure things were put in
EXPLAIN that no client needs, which was certainly done. But I thought all
that data was tables someone did load, and thought it would be nice to
dynamically load.  Now EXPLAIN based clients are not popping up all over,
but I have had requests to populate EXPLAIN elements that I had no use for,
from people I have never seen on this listserv.
   
   All the unused stuff in explain (and Z39.50) never bothers me - I ignore
it till a need arises.  BUt then I don't use an ASN.1 compiler...
   bob   wald@lucent.com

Received on Tuesday, 21 November 2000 09:57:41 UTC