Re: SV: Z39.50 on the web (and in print)

Rob,

well of course - if profiles were rigorously used you could argue that we dont need explain anyway - "just look it up in the profile".
But again, full profile compliance wont ever happen either (synicism or reality ?).  

So, for the F/N folks - whats the equivalent of "robots.txt" in Z39.50 ???
Answers on a post card please...

Rob



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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robert Sanderson 
  To: Rob Bull 
  Cc: Mike Taylor ; www-zig@w3.org 
  Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 3:42 PM
  Subject: Re: SV: Z39.50 on the web (and in print)




  > with explain being there for all those years in the 1995 standard:
  > [ no one implemented it ]
  > Even if there was enough ZIG energy to do explain properly via a
  > profile etc. - chances are that someone will want the ASN changed and

  I think most people would be happy to get something together, even if it's 
  not Explain mapped directly into XML.

  If someone [tm] were to map out an attribute architectured way of 
  searching explain like records, then you could return them in GRS1, XML, 
  SUTRS or whatever else you wanted.  Just put them into a database 
  called... iR-exPlAin-2 [1] or whatever was agreed upon.

  Of course this means that vendors would need to implement the attr arch, 
  but they were going to do that anyway for Bath compliance, right? :)

  You then don't have to worry about either taking an unnecessary hit on 
  init, or somehow connecting to a web server to get information about the 
  Z server.  Finding out where to go for the webserver is of course yet 
  another question that's unanswered -- may as well just use what we've 
  already got, eg Z39.50 databases with records in them.


  > And in 2 years of explain lite existing there is probably more usage
  > than there ever were explain servers.  For the requirement of

  Probably, but you have a big project behind you who all have to use it ;)
  If you count all the Cheshire servers, then we may have you beat for 
  Explain capable machines.

  The other Rob

  1: As discovered last time this was talked about, databasename is case 
  insensitive.

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