> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 22:28:53 +0100
> From: "Matthew J. Dovey" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > I'm trying not to get involved in this discussion,
>
> Please do! I only question these things to make sure we've
> considered the options...

Thanks, but ...

> But do we really need a full blown eSpec or just brief and full EAD
> record specs? (I have a feeling you're going to say yes ;-) ).

No, I will say nothing.  This is exactly the kind of thing I don't
know enough about to comment, hence my trying to stay out of the
argument.  All I can tell you is that Rob perceives a need for dynamic
eSpec-alikes, and I perceive a need for 40Mb records ... so it's not
unreasonable to assume the two will meet, but I can't cite examples.

> A full EAD record is almost a database in its own right, so perhaps
> you want to search with a finer granularity as to the level of the
> record you want back rather than do eSpec/qSpec things? And yes, I
> can remember all the discussions which eventually lead to qSpec at
> the 98 ZIG.

For what it's worth, I think qSpec is a horrible mistake (if you
remember the '98 discussion accurately and comprehensively, you
already know that :-) but let's not go there ...

> >> //holdings/holding[library='mylibrary']/shelfmark
> >
> >Yes; any off-the-shelf XPath implementation should handler this.
>
> Yep - that was my point, you throw in an full Xpath implementation
> off the shelf rather than do a complex hand-coded lookup table and
> this comes with lots of clever Xpath extensions in which you hacker
> manages to exploit to get into your server...

I agree with Rob, this stuff's not _supposed_ to be easy :-)

Think job-security :-)

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <[log in to unmask]>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
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