Mike,
 
In Z39.50 we have a lot of complex machinery that is hardly (or sometimes never) used. Mainly because we would introduce some additional functionality (sometimes quite complex - e.g. qSpec) to solve a particular problem in one particular applicaiton, which no-one else needed or subsequently used, or in some causes to solve a hypothetical problem which no-one has actually encountered.
 
The result *is* a powerful and versatile spec. but also a complex and potentially confusing spec. for new comers.
 
With SRW I'm more in favour of keeping it simple - I'm not against adding new stuff if it really *is* needed to solve a *real* problem. I'm not particularly happy to add stuff just because it can do clever stuff that might solve a future undefined problem.
 
Anyway, in this case it isn't that I want to prevent people from putting up such a server - just that it seems a particularly silly thing to do and not particularly useful.
 
Matthew
 

________________________________

From: Z39.50 Next-Generation Initiative on behalf of Mike Taylor
Sent: Tue 22/07/2003 10:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: xPath in searchRequest



> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 08:09:09 +0100
> From: "Matthew J. Dovey" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> It's not just EAD though.  There's no restriction in SRW that you
>> can't use it for only short metadata records... Imagine someone
>> with (say) full text journal articles.  Or full texts of entire
>> books.  Or SVG even?  Search through complex structures and return
>> instances of circles. (or whatever SVG primitives are like)
>
> But is this a real application? Would someone really put up an SRW
> server which when I search for Shakespeare would return the
> full-text of books which mention Shakespeare?

Who knows what wonderful and weird things people will come up with?
Our job in designing a protocol is to provide mechanisms to let
implementors do what they wish, and not to mandate or even imply
policy.  Let's not preclude _any_ uses of SRW merely on the grounds
that we don't happen to want to use it that way today.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <[log in to unmask]>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Found New Hardware.  Please connect to Internet to download
         drivers for Device: PCI Modem and for Device: Ethernet card"
         - Windows XP.

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