On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Peter Schlumpf <pschlu...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I want to get back to simple things. Imagine if there were no Marc records. > Minimal layers of abstraction. No politics. No vendors. No SQL > straightjacket. What would an ILS look like without those things? Back to this original question, when I imagine these things, I imagine building an ILS that relies on an unusual data persistence backend, discounts industry-standard data formats, and explicitly ignores the political concerns of adopting, deploying, and maintaining it. And I get a little bit nervous. For what it's worth (and I think this touches on the ontological discussion in this thread, too) -- my experience has been that it's easier to build a piece of software that solves a problem compellingly, solving technical hurdles as you need to than it is to come up with solutions to anticipated technical problems before starting on making a product. More concretely: if you build a software product, I don't care at all whether it's based on a SQL straitjacket or a luscious RDF comforter. I care if it solves a problem well, and that I can install it and run it easily. Cheers, -Nate
