Re: ZNG: "Z39.50 Next Generation"

On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 05:23:30PM +0100, Robert Sanderson wrote:
> Get your programmers who are experienced in Z to write an API for your non
> Z programmers to use. If you chose to publish this API such that others
> can use it, more power to you. /This/ would be a productive way forward,
> rather than discarding bits which are complex but have already been
> implemented by others.

To me, this is exactly what ZNG is - a standardised web services
interface to Z39.50. Our product is not going to drop the core
Z39.50 protocol. We are going to add an alternative "web services"
interface allowing SOAP clients written in any language to access
our server easily in a way that programmers will understand.

I don't see ZNG as a "replacement of Z39.50". I see it as some of
the vendors agreeing to a subset of Z39.50 via a SOAP based API
rather than each vendor developing their own proprietory API.

I think the name "ZNG" (Z39.50 - Next Generation) is both bad and good.
Bad in that it implies its a replacement for Z39.50 (which I do not
think it is), and good in that the name will appeal to programmers.

For example, there is not a lot more to SOAP than XML-RPC. But the
name is much better so I think it has taken off much better. I think
its success is based more on its name than the technical aspects. :-)
(Ok, that is a *very* personal opinion!!! :-)

Alan

Received on Sunday, 15 July 2001 19:54:46 UTC