- From: Ashley Sanders <zzaascs@irwell.mimas.ac.uk>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 15:18:05 +0100
- To: Robert Sanderson <azaroth@liverpool.ac.uk>
- Cc: ZIG <www-zig@w3.org>
Robert Sanderson wrote: > 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? It preserves the jargon. That's it as far as I can tell. It has one plus point -- no Bib-1. http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zng.html says: : Flat access points will be defined, rather than utilizing : attribute vectors as in standard Z39.50. For example, consider : 'title - word' and 'title - phrase'. In ZNG these would be : represented as distinct access points (rather than two attribute : combinations with the same Use attribute and different qualifying : attributes). This is something that is lacking in the current standard. It is certainly a movement in the right direction (which, IMHO, the new attribute architecture wasn't.) > Without sessions, resultset storage will be as little > implemented as it is now. I suspect Robbie is being too optimistic about this and that a lot of developers just wont bother with result set storage. The architecture is such it would be just oh so easy to conveniently forget about it. A lot of developers seem to do the bare minimum neccessary already. This wont give ZNG a reputation for being efficient. Database providers and service funders like sessions as it makes usage analysis much easier and useful. A session makes it possible to see how someone is using the system. A search response could pass back a session-id for inclusion in subsequent searchess, but there's no gaurantee a client would subsequently use it. But that's what you get with a connectionless "protocol" and no Init. : The Z39.50 concept of record syntax is not meaningful in ZNG and : is discarded; all ZNG records will be retrieved according to a : single record syntax: XML. How do you tell the client what you've packaged up in that weighty XML envelope? Pieter Van Lierop wrote: > I am sceptical about the idea of trying to make a "mainstream protocol", if > only because "mainstream" means "simplified" which means "poor". Have to agree with that. Ashley. -- Ashley Sanders a.sanders@mcc.ac.uk COPAC: A public bibliographic database from MIMAS, funded by JISC http://copac.ac.uk/ - copac@mimas.ac.uk
Received on Friday, 13 July 2001 10:18:07 UTC