Re: ZNG: "Z39.50 Next Generation"

> This is a proof-of-concept initiative to develop a standard search and
> retrieve service lowering the barriers to implementation while
> preserving the existing intellectual contributions of Z39.50 that have
> accumulated over nearly 20 years, discarding those aspects no longer
> useful or meaningful.
>
> see http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zng.html for a more detailed description.


Err....
No session support?  No separate search/present? No ASN/BER ? No multiple
record syntaxes?  No -scan-?

Getting rid of these makes it next to useless in context. At least you
didn't cut out search completely (which would make it almost identical to
OAI).  Exactly how does ZNG preserve anything of the current Z protocol?

Without sessions, resultset storage will be as little implemented as it is
now.  As you can't predict whether the result set will be needed in 2
seconds or 2 hours, on any server of significant

I understand that the impetus here is to bring it into line with current
web database structures. As far as I'm concerned, this is a waste of time
as the current advantages of Z are being cut out. People will just use
SQL, rather than ZNG as it is proven and established, with a very large
knowledge and support base already in existance.


Rob Sanderson

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Received on Friday, 13 July 2001 07:24:08 UTC