RE: ZNG: "Z39.50 Next Generation" (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 13:07:46 +0100 (BST)
From: Robert Sanderson <azaroth@liverpool.ac.uk>
To: "LeVan,Ralph" <levan@oclc.org>
Subject: RE: ZNG: "Z39.50 Next Generation"


> There are no babies being thrown away and we're keeping all that nasty
> bathwater we've been accumulating over the years.  But, we are making a new
> tub that the baby can be washed in.  One with slightly cleaner water that
> won't require hydraulic engineers to open the taps.

Can I ask then:

Why the changes to the specification?  Why not create a system which
simply overlays the current protocol?

For example:

fieldN  (USE attribute, or synonym)
termN   (search term)
boolN   (boolean to append to link)
operN   (operator to use if necessary, eg > < etc)

  (repeatable, incrementing N)

bool        (default boolean)
maxrecords  (maximum number of records)
firstrecord (record to start with)
resultset   (name of resultset)
recsyntax   (name of record syntax to retreive, if other than XML)

scanfield   (field to scan)
scanterm    (term to scan at)

sortfield   (field to sort on)
ascending   (boolean, ascending/descending)

etc.

Overload it to allow a specific search to retreive the 'Explain Lite' xml
record, which would include the supported query types as Init does now,
and the location of the Real Z database if there is one.

This would be for most current implementers trivial to do, I would expect.
The uptake would be much higher as a result, which would be good for
everyone.  And if people take up ZNG to implement over top of non Z
databases, they may then change over to using real Z if a suitable
solution exists in order to fully support the underlying protocol.
Which obviously benefits us all.

(*grins* I feel like a drug dealer ... here, just try this new thing, it's
called ZNG... now you're hooked on ZNG, let me introduce you to this
really great stuff... It's like zing but better... all the really cool
people are doing it... )

Rob


> It's that last point that really gripes me.  We've got a great standard and
> few people outside the library community want to use it.  The need for it is
> great and it certainly gets looked at; nearly everyone in the information
> retrieval industry knows what it is and they know why they don't want to use
> it.
> > a) It's an implementers agreement about which names to use in
> > cgi scripts which query real Z databases.  or:


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Received on Tuesday, 17 July 2001 10:13:46 UTC