[Zope-dev] Re: [Zope] Z39.50

[Fredrick Rybarczyk]

Hi Rik,
I'm sinking into deeper into a deep pit of dung timewise right now, but I'd
really like to do something like this. I also think that zope provides an
excellent base for a z39.50 gateway. Most of the machinery is already there. I
will try to sketch out a workplan in the beginning of next week (I'm working
part-time right now.) but I think these are the main issues of a simple
service:
1. Define a way to map a search form query to z39.50 queries. That will require
knowledge about the target z39.50 servers so we would need some sort of tool
here.
2. Create persistent connections to the target servers.. ..shouldn't be too
hard.
3. After sending out the query we need to wait for the result sets and sort
them together according to their ranking and user preferences.
4. Present the results.
5. Lots of stuff that I either can't express or type or be bothered with right
now :-)
0. Todo all this we need to create a solid session concept -possibly with
threads?!?
-1. I'm not a crackshot zoper but I'm quite handy with python and c/c++
There aren't much python code out there that I know of but there's a lot of
stuff in c:ish languages.

Chris, you wrote:
"""A couple years ago, I worked iwth the freewaissf client libraries, and
they're not too bad... I can imagine you might be able to create a new
database adapter that would work, similar to how we do LDAP.  If you need
some ideas, let me know."""
Well, we do need ideas, toss in a few solid concepts and we'll hear you out.

Best regards, Fredrick.

PS. I'll have a talk about this with the z39.50 dudes around netlab (my work
that is)..


Rik Hoekstra wrote:

> Hello Fredrick,
>
> Any news on the Z39.50 front? Something from Chris Petrilli
> I think Zope could be an ideal vehicle for a Z39.50 gateway, especially when
> you want to combine them with other (database) searches, but I have never
> quite found a place to start with - doing it all from the bottom up always
> seemed a mountain I could not climb - especially as I have not much
> experience about Z39.50 and it's so complicated (I do know quite a bit more
> about python and Zope, though).
>
> I have been looking at the research area of your website, and was quite
> impressed with the projects there. It seems you would have interesting ideas
> on the integration of a z39.50 gateway in Zope.
>
> greetings,
>
> Rik Hoekstra
>
> Faculty of Social Science Library
> Leiden University
> email: hoekstra@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

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