Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
I've been involved in several projects lambasted because managers think MARCXML is solving some imaginary problem It seems to me that this is really the heart of your argument. You had this experience, and now are projecting the opinions of these managers onto lots of people in the library world. I've worked in libraries for nearly a decade, and have never met anyone (manager or otherwise) who held the belief that XML in general, or MARC-XML in particular, somehow magically solves all metadata problems. I guess our two experiences cancel each other out, then. And, ultimately, none of that has anything to do with MARC-XML itself. --Dave == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Alexander Johannesen [alexander.johanne...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 7:10 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for? On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com wrote: Here, I think you're guilty of radically underestimating lots of people around the library world. No one thinks MARC is a good solution to our modern problems, and no one who actually knows what MARC is has trouble understanding MARC-XML as an XML serialization of the same old data -- certainly not anyone capable of meaningful contribution to work on an alternative. Slow down, Tex. Lots of people in the library world is not the same as developers, or even good developers, or even good XML developers, or even good XML developers who knows what the document model imposes to a data-centric approach. The problem we're dealing with is *hard*. Mind-numbingly hard. This is no justification for not doing things better. (And I'd love to know what the hard bits are; always interesting to hear from various people as to what they think are the *real* problems of library problems, as opposed to any other problem they have) The library world has several generations of infrastructure built around MARC (by which I mean AACR2), and devising data structures and standards that are a big enough improvement over MARC to warrant replacing all that infrastructure is an engineering and political nightmare. Political? For sure. Engineering? Not so much. This is just that whole blinded by MARC issue that keeps cropping up from time to time, and rightly so; it is truly a beast - at least the way we have come to know it through AACR2 and all its friends and its death-defying focus on all things bibliographic - that has paralyzed library innovation, probably to the point of making libraries almost irrelevant to the world. I'm happy to take potshots at the RDA stuff from the sidelines, but I never forget that I'm on the sidelines, and that the people active in the game are among the best and brightest we have to offer, working on a problem that invariably seems more intractable the deeper in you go. Well, that's a pretty scary sentence, for all sorts of reasons, but I think I shall not go there. If you think MARC-XML is some sort of an actual problem What, because you don't agree with me the problem doesn't exist? :) and that people just need to be shouted at to realize that and do something about it, then, well, I think you're just plain wrong. Fair enough, although you seem to be under the assumption that all of the stuff I'm saying is a figment of my imagination (I've been involved in several projects lambasted because managers think MARCXML is solving some imaginary problem; this is not bullshit, but pain and suffering from the battlefields of library development), that I'm not one of those developers (or one of you, although judging from this discussion it's clear that I am not), that the things I say somehow doesn't apply because you don't agree with, umm, what I'm assuming is my somewhat direct approach to stating my heretic opinions. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
[CODE4LIB] Hadoop/MapReduce and FOP
Has anyone out there built a distributed application using Hadoop (or another MapReduce framework) and FOP? I'm interested in ways we can potentially allow our XSL:FO processing to scale. Mark A. Matienzo Digital Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
One way is to first transform the MARC into MARC-XML. Then you can use XSLT to crosswalk the MARC-XML into that other schema. Very handy. Your criticisms of MARC-XML all seem to presume that MARC-XML is the goal, the end point in the process. But MARC-XML is really better seen as a utility, a middle step between binary MARC and the real goal, which is some other useful and interesting XML schema. Unless useful and interesting is a euphemism for Dublin Core, then using XSLT for crosswalking is not really an option. Well, not a good option. On the other end of the spectrum, assume Onix for useful and interesting and XSLT simply won't work. Crosswalking doesn't hold water as a justification for MARCXML. /dev -- Devon Smith Consulting Software Engineer OCLC Research http://www.oclc.org/research/people/smith.htm -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Walker, David Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 8:57 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for? b) expanding it to be actual useful and interesting. But here I think you've missed the very utility of MARC-XML. Let's say you have a binary MARC file (the kind that comes out of an ILS) and want to transform that into MODS, Dublin Core, or maybe some other XML schema. How would you do that? One way is to first transform the MARC into MARC-XML. Then you can use XSLT to crosswalk the MARC-XML into that other schema. Very handy. Your criticisms of MARC-XML all seem to presume that MARC-XML is the goal, the end point in the process. But MARC-XML is really better seen as a utility, a middle step between binary MARC and the real goal, which is some other useful and interesting XML schema. --Dave == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Alexander Johannesen [alexander.johanne...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 12:38 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for? Hiya, On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:26 AM, Nate Vack njv...@wisc.edu wrote: Switching to an XML format doesn't help with that at all. I'm willing to take it further and say that MARCXML was the worst thing the library world ever did. Some might argue it was a good first step, and that it was better with something rather than nothing, to which I respond ; Poppycock! MARCXML is nothing short of evil. Not only does it goes against every principal of good XML anywhere (don't rely on whitespace, structure over code, namespace conventions, identity management, document control, separation of entities and properties, and on and on), it breaks the ontological commitment that a better treatment of the MARC data could bring, deterring people from actually a) using the darn thing as anything but a bare minimal crutch, and b) expanding it to be actual useful and interesting. The quicker the library world can get rid of this monstrosity, the better, although I doubt that will ever happen; it will hang around like a foul stench for as long as there is MARC in the world. A long time. A long sad time. A few extra notes; http://shelterit.blogspot.com/2008/09/marcxml-beast-of-burden.html Can you tell I'm not a fan? :) Kind regards, Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
But it looks just like the old thing using insert data scheme and some templates? Ah yes, but now we're doing it in XML! I think this applies to 90% of instances where XML was adopted, especially within the enterprise IT industry. Through marketing or misunderstanding, XML was presumed to be the magic fairy dust that would solve countless problems simply by switching to it. The library world is certainly not unique in this respect. Returning to the original question, what is MARCXML for, I think there have been some very clear examples of where it can be useful to some people, sometimes. If it works for you, use it. It not, don't. To wit, I propose: Some people, when confronted with a problem, think I know, I'll use MARCXML. Now they have three problems: MARC, XML, and the one they started with. Moving on. MJ
[CODE4LIB] CfP 3rd International Workshop on Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage - Palo Alto, CA | 13-16 February 2011
[apologies for cross posting] 3rd International Workshop on Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage in conjunction with IUI2011 Conference (Palo Alto, CA | 13-16 February 2011) http://www.cs.vu.nl/~laroyo/PATCH2011/ November 12, 2010: paper submission deadline December 12, 2010: notification to authors December 19, 2010: submission of camera-ready papers Context The rapid development of information technologies and the Internet has enabled cultural heritage and public organizations to provide access to their collections not only through physical displays but also online, and attract even wider audiences than those that visit the physical museums. Additionally, various trends on Web 2.0 allow for users not only to be passive consumers, but also active participants. Personalization capitalizes on a user-centered intelligent interactive information exchange between museum websites or museum guide systems and visitors. The museum monologue turns into a dialog, and personalization enables a new communication strategy based on a continuous process of interaction, collaboration, learning and adaptation between the museum and its visitors. Personalization could improve the interaction and experience of visitors on museum websites and with museum guide systems by supporting visitors' navigation and assisting them in quickly finding an appropriate starting point, and in discovering new relevant information. This workshop will focus on the specific challenges for personalization in the cultural heritage setting from the point of view of user interaction and visitor experience. It will investigate how the user interface - the contact point of visitors and systems - can become more intelligent by means of personalization. Overall, the workshop will aim at attracting presentations of novel ideas for addressing these challenges and the current state of the art in this field. Submission form: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~laroyo/PATCH2011/ Organisers: Lora Aroyo, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands Fabian Bohnert, Monash University, Australia. Tsvi Kuflik, The University of Haifa, Israel. Johan Oomen, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, The Netherlands. -- Einde van doorgestuurd bericht
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
Alex, I think the problem is data like this: http://lccn.loc.gov/96516389/marcxml And while we can probably figure out a pattern to get the semantics out this record, there is no telling how many other variations exist within our collections. So we've got lots of this data that is both hard to parse and, frankly, hard to find (since it has practically zero machine readable data in fields we actually use) and it needs to coexist with some newer, semantically richer format. What I'm saying is that the library's legacy data problem is almost to the point of being existential. This is certainly a detriment to forward progress. Analogously (although at a much smaller scale), my wife and I have been trying for about 2 years to move our checking account from our out of state bank to something local. The problem is that we have built up a lot of infrastructure around our old bank (direct deposit and lots of automatic bill pay, etc.): migration would not only be time consuming, any mistakes made could potentially be quite expensive and we have a lot of uncertainty of how long it would actually take to migrate (and how that might affect the flow of payments, etc.). It's been, to date, easier for us just to drive across the state line (despite the fact that it's way out of our way to anywhere) rather than actually deal with it. In the meantime, more direct bill pay things have been set up and whatnot making our eventual migration that much more difficult. I do think it would be useful to figure out what exactly in our legacy data is found only in libraries (that is, we could ditch this shoddy The Last Waltz record and pull the data from LinkedMDB or Freebase or somewhere) and determine the scale of the problem that only we can address, but even just this environmental scan is a fairly large undertaking. -Ross. On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 10:10 PM, Alexander Johannesen alexander.johanne...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com wrote: Here, I think you're guilty of radically underestimating lots of people around the library world. No one thinks MARC is a good solution to our modern problems, and no one who actually knows what MARC is has trouble understanding MARC-XML as an XML serialization of the same old data -- certainly not anyone capable of meaningful contribution to work on an alternative. Slow down, Tex. Lots of people in the library world is not the same as developers, or even good developers, or even good XML developers, or even good XML developers who knows what the document model imposes to a data-centric approach. The problem we're dealing with is *hard*. Mind-numbingly hard. This is no justification for not doing things better. (And I'd love to know what the hard bits are; always interesting to hear from various people as to what they think are the *real* problems of library problems, as opposed to any other problem they have) The library world has several generations of infrastructure built around MARC (by which I mean AACR2), and devising data structures and standards that are a big enough improvement over MARC to warrant replacing all that infrastructure is an engineering and political nightmare. Political? For sure. Engineering? Not so much. This is just that whole blinded by MARC issue that keeps cropping up from time to time, and rightly so; it is truly a beast - at least the way we have come to know it through AACR2 and all its friends and its death-defying focus on all things bibliographic - that has paralyzed library innovation, probably to the point of making libraries almost irrelevant to the world. I'm happy to take potshots at the RDA stuff from the sidelines, but I never forget that I'm on the sidelines, and that the people active in the game are among the best and brightest we have to offer, working on a problem that invariably seems more intractable the deeper in you go. Well, that's a pretty scary sentence, for all sorts of reasons, but I think I shall not go there. If you think MARC-XML is some sort of an actual problem What, because you don't agree with me the problem doesn't exist? :) and that people just need to be shouted at to realize that and do something about it, then, well, I think you're just plain wrong. Fair enough, although you seem to be under the assumption that all of the stuff I'm saying is a figment of my imagination (I've been involved in several projects lambasted because managers think MARCXML is solving some imaginary problem; this is not bullshit, but pain and suffering from the battlefields of library development), that I'm not one of those developers (or one of you, although judging from this discussion it's clear that I am not), that the things I say somehow doesn't apply because you don't agree with, umm, what I'm assuming is my somewhat direct approach to stating my heretic opinions. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX,
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
This is no justification for not doing things better. (And I'd love to know what the hard bits are; always interesting to hear from various people as to what they think are the *real* problems of library problems, as opposed to any other problem they have) The problem is you have to deal with legacy systems and data. That's as real as it gets. That this is somehow a shortcoming peculiar to the library community is nonsense. Just changing the way dates were stored so that Y2K wasn't a big deal caused total chaos in the business world for years and required many billions of dollars worth of development. We still use 4 digit numeric PINs to access bank accounts. If I created some crummy website that used that level of protection, people would rightly call me an idiot. Eliminating MARC and basing systems on a completely different data structure would have far more reaching impact on system design than twiddling with a couple date digits or allowing something more secure than 4 digits to protect access to thousands of dollars. So as crappy as our systems are, I don't buy we're so much worse than everyone else out there. There is always the issue of developing the new standard in the first place, convincing all the vendors to adopt it, and retrofitting the systems to work with it. Problems are easiest to solve when it's someone else's job to make it happen. kyle -- -- Kyle Banerjee Digital Services Program Manager Orbis Cascade Alliance baner...@uoregon.edu / 503.877.9773
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
Hi, On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com wrote: Sorry. That was rude, and uncalled for. I disagree that the problem is easily solved, even without the politics. There've been lots of attempts to try to come up with a sufficiently expressive toolset for dealing with biblio data, and we're still working on it. If you do think you've got some insight, I'm sure we're all ears, but try to frame it terms of the existing work if you can (RDA, some of the dublin core stuff, etc.) so we have a frame of reference. Well, I've wined enough both here and on NGC4LIB, and I'm kinda over it, just like I'm sure most people are over my whining. But sufficient to say is that FRBR is a 15 year old model that has still not been proven in the Real World[TM] in any meaningful way (the prototypes works fine until you dig a bit) and probably never will as long as MARC21 runs the show, and trying to stick RDA on top with rules that has got use-cases that are old enough to be my kids, well, I'm not very positive about that either. The direction of going ontological is a good one, and in the lack of anything else, RDF-infused FRBR / RDA is probably the way to go (except I'd ditch RDA and, uh, perhaps even FRBR, or at least seriously modify it), but the community is decidedly not talking about ontological interoperability nor extensions nor the semantics involved to solve actual problems in the bibliographic world (including the fact that it is inherently bibliographic). There needs to be much more involvement by library geeks and managers in defining semantic reuse and extensibility, to properly define those things that are almost absent from the AACR2 and friends; the relationships between entities themselves. In other words, you need to get away from the record-centered view, and embrace the subject-centric view. Anyway, enough from this old grumpy bum. Sorry to stir up the dust. Regards, Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] asist2010 meetup?
Whoops, that was bus 61B not 61D. //Ed 15:23 edsu @quote get 3 15:23 zoia edsu: Quote #3: edsu, your source for bad advice since, well, forever! (added by edsu at 09:46 PM, September 06, 2005) On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Ed Summers e...@pobox.com wrote: Kind of last minute and random, but If you are at ASIST in Pittsburgh and want to get out of the downtown for some pizza at Aiello's in Squirrell Hill please join Raymond Yee and myself there at 7pm. http://www.aiellospizza.com/ It looks like a simple ride on the 61D bus: http://bit.ly/hilton-to-aiellos And Raymond may be able to drive some folks back if they don't want to taxi or bus back. //Ed
[CODE4LIB] Reimagining METS
The METS Editorial Board is starting to think about what a METS 2.0 might look like / assess the need for a METS 2.0. To that end, we have put together a little While Paper Reimagining METS: An Exploration http://bit.ly/cySIM1 suggested suplemental reading for Reimagining METS http://bit.ly/96vaFO From Nancy's message to the METS list [T]here is a session planned to discuss the White Paper at the CLIR / DLR Fall Forum (http://www.clir.org/dlf/forums/fall2010/index.html) on Tuesday, November 2nd, from 4 - 5:30 pm PDT at the DLF Meeting site in Palo Alto, California. While registration for that event is now closed, discussions by anyone interested including METS Board members will also occur on Wednesday afternoon at the open Board meeting, from 1:30 - 5 pm, PDT. An agenda for the open Board meeting on Wednesday and Thursday can be found on the METS wiki at: https://www.socialtext.net/mim-2006/index.cgi?agenda_3_4_november_2010_dlf_fall_forum. If you are interested in attending this meeting in person, please contact any of the Board members (see the METS website at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/mets-board.html). We would like to make the meeting available via web conferencing as well, if possible, so please let a Board member know if you are interested in participation in the meeting by that means. I personally have questions about the need for a new XML Schema (w3c) for METS, and I'd like to understand what the goal of the new METS is before deciding what the form of a new METS is. Once, Mackenzie Smith was suggesting investigating METS as an RDF schema. Maybe if METS could be expressed in JSON, then they would be easy to work with from javascript web apps? Could METS become a metamodel of digital object existence that transcends the physical information serialization? Or, do we just try to harmonize with MODS/MADS and EAD/TEI/DDI etc. as they evolve as XML schema and wave at OAI-ORE? With alternatives to the fileSec like bagIt out there, could METS stand to be more modular so one maybe could keep the structMap in METS but point to files in a bag? Also, what about interoperability? This still seems like a good goal to me, an interoperable standard for digital object where I can download an object out of a repository and put it my own system without having to worry about customizing my systems to work with your stuff. METS sort of helps here, but ... not really that much more than having stuff in XML. What are your ideas about what direction METS should develop in to best meet the needs of the code4lib community? What annoys you about METS needs to be fixed? What about METS puzzles your? What do you love about METS and would hate to see changed? Thanks for any thoughts on this subject, -- Brian Tingle, METS Editorial Board some more METS related thoughts and links http://tingletech.tumblr.com/tagged/mets
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 03:32 +0200, Alexander Johannesen wrote: Here's our new thing. And we did it by simply converting all our MARC into MARCXML that runs on a cron job every midnight, and a bit of horrendous XSLT that's impossible to maintain. I am in the development department of our library. We're a diverse bunch of guys, ranging from the bottom (that's me, hacking Lucene) to the top (our graphics guy). Somewhere in the middle we have 2 librarians. They do not program in traditional languages, but have been trained to produce XSLT's and it actually works! They are capable of translating their vast knowledge of the myriad of standards we encounter into code that transforms our XML-input into something we can use for indexing. Aha!, you counter, why not train them to use X instead, since X is much better at transforming normal MARC?. The answer is that MARC isn't the only format they need to handle. We currently have 20+ different sources that they need to transform. All of them except one is XML. The one is ISO 2709 MARC, which we - naturally - transform into MARCXML so that it can be processed the same way as the rest. There might be better tools than XSLT for transformation of XML that we could use, but the XML-part is so ubiquitous at this point in time that it is the obvious choice for common ground. MARC is just one in many. It might be the most evil and unruly beast of the bunch, but we tame it with the same tools as the rest.
[CODE4LIB] Job Opening: Drupal Software Developer(s)
The University of Minnesota Libraries seeks two or more talented Drupal software developers, for either one or two year appointments, to design and support new, innovative web-based library services, systems, and tools which address as well as anticipate the evolving needs of library users. The University Libraries are supporting multiple projects using the Drupal platform. Responsibilities could include two or more of the following areas of Drupal development: * In collaboration with our partners in the American Indian Studies department, provide primary development support for the forthcoming Online Ojibwe Dictionary. Responsibilities include addressing both content provider and user needs in developing a robust web application using the Drupal framework. * Provide development support for the University Libraries’ UMedia Archive ( umedia.lib.umn.edu), a digital library application that provides users with access to many of the Libraries rich media collections as well as allowing for user submitted uploads. Using Drupal, work to integrate new features and support current mechanisms that help further the enhance the user experience. * Assist in implementing the Drupal CMS for the main public facing web site of the University Libraries (www.lib.umn.edu) , creating customization and personalization options for library users, helping in the creation of mobile version of library web site(s), designing new sites, and using new web services technologies to improve the user experience in discovering, searching, finding, or acquiring library materials and content. Projects may also likely include further integration of library resources into the Moodle course management tool, implementation of Shibboleth identity management system, and creatively using various API’s made available by Google, OCLC, Amazon, Ex Libris and other library vendors. For more information and to apply: http://employment.umn.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=90989 -- *** Shane Nackerud Director, Web Development University of Minnesota Libraries 325 Walter Library Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-625-7880
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
I think: 1. Marc must die. It has lived long enough. 2. But everybody uses Marc (which is in fact good), too many people are keeping it alive. 3. MARC in XML does not solve the problem, but it makes the suffering so much less painful Peter
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
Political? For sure. Engineering? Not so much. Ok. Solve it. Let us know when you're done. Wow, lamest reply so far. Surely you could muster a tad bit better? I was excited about getting a list of the hardest problems, for example, I'd love to see that. Then by that perhaps you could explain what this unsurmountable hard mind-boggeling problem actually is, because, you know, you never actually said. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
[CODE4LIB] Q: Summon API Service?
Hi, Unlike Link/360, Serials Solution's Summon API is extremely cumbersome to use - requiring, for instance, that requests be digitally signed. (*) Has anybody developed a proxy server for Summon that makes its API public (e.g. receives requests, signs them, forwards them to Summon, and relays the result back to a HTTP client?) Serials Solutions publishes some PHP5 and Ruby sample code in two API libraries (**), but these don't appear to be fully fledged nor easy-to-install solutions. (Easy to install here is defined as an average systems librarian can download them, provide the API key, and have a running solution in less time than it takes to install Wordpress.) Thanks! - Godmar (*) http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/help/api/authentication (**) http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/help/api/code
Re: [CODE4LIB] Django
Congratulations on discovering python. It will serve you much better than php, or any other scripting language. Skipping to the punch-line, you should dive into python before you dive in django: http://diveintopython.org/ You will have a very much more easy time if you learn how to debug a script in the shell (rather than running a program endless times with different print statements), use introspection, slice lists and basic OOP. I also learned php first, inorder to add a shopping cart onto my friend's website. However, I switched to this other scripting language, python, because it could do things php cant. For instance, my first project in python involved capturing keyboard input before windows heard about it. Then I kept discovering amazing things python can do that php cant. I helped write a non-sequential optical ray tracer in python. When it needed to be faster there were several libraries for writing C code directly in a pythonic syntax. Python has hooks into everything, like optical character recognition, electronic music sequeuencing/generation, serial port i/o. Gnucash, an opensource quicken like accounting package, has python bindings. when there were no decent free unRARing programs available, I discovered python could do it easily. And if you decide you need to use the parallel vector processeors of your nvida graphic card's onboard multicore GPU, there is a package for that: PyCuda. And they all weave together seamlessly. Django could use PyCuda in a custom form validation method to determine if an archived folder of pictures you have uploaded has an image of a car with a decipherable licence plate. Anyways, python is great, and by extension I expect Django is also (just learning it myself). good luck, Elliot
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
I'd suspect that MARCXML isn't going anywhere fast, a shame perhaps. The key difference between MARCXML and MARC is that MARCXML inherits XMLs internationalisation features. It is an aspect at which MARC is very poor. Andrew -- Andrew Cunningham Senior Project Manager, Research and Development Vicnet State Library of Victoria Australia andr...@vicnet.net.au lang.supp...@gmail.com
[CODE4LIB] asist2010 meetup?
Kind of last minute and random, but If you are at ASIST in Pittsburgh and want to get out of the downtown for some pizza at Aiello's in Squirrell Hill please join Raymond Yee and myself there at 7pm. http://www.aiellospizza.com/ It looks like a simple ride on the 61D bus: http://bit.ly/hilton-to-aiellos And Raymond may be able to drive some folks back if they don't want to taxi or bus back. //Ed
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
On Oct 25, 2010, at 10:31 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: Political? For sure. Engineering? Not so much. Ok. Solve it. Let us know when you're done. Wow, lamest reply so far. Surely you could muster a tad bit better? I was excited about getting a list of the hardest problems, for example, I'd love to see that. Then by that perhaps you could explain what this unsurmountable hard mind-boggeling problem actually is, because, you know, you never actually said. Now, now, boys. Don't make us turn this mailing list around and go right back home. Because we will. And you'll go to bed without dinner! Seriously, though, I've been following this thread closely since I'm new to the library world and the petty bickering undermines both of your points and distracts from an otherwise intellectual and enlightening discussion. --Joel Joel Richard IT Specialist, Web Services Department Smithsonian Institution Libraries | http://www.sil.si.edu/ (202) 633-1706 | (202) 786-2861 (f) | richar...@si.edu
[CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
This is a tiny bit of mailing list administratativia: 1) there are about 1,500 hundred of us 2) we are from all over the world 3) the largest group is from gmail.com 4) the mailing list is configured to stop processing after 50 message are sent in one day 5) 50 messages were sent on Monday 6) I let the list rest for a day 7) the list has been restarted, obviously -- Eric Lease Morgan Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame (574) 631-8604
Re: [CODE4LIB] Q: Summon API Service?
VuFind (http://vufind.org) has a built-in Summon module. I won't make claims about ease of use relative to Wordpress, but installing VuFind is pretty straightforward (especially under Ubuntu, where you can take advantage of a .DEB package), and using it to access Summon is a matter of putting your API key in the Summon configuration file and changing the default module from Search to Summon in the main configuration file. If you want VuFind to work without the underlying Solr instance running, you also have to comment out a small chunk of code (something that will be made more easily configurable in a future release -- it hasn't been a priority yet since there aren't a lot of people using it solely as a Summon wrapper). If you're interested in more details on this, feel free to drop me a line... or join the VuFind mailing list. - Demian -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Godmar Back Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 6:46 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Q: Summon API Service? Hi, Unlike Link/360, Serials Solution's Summon API is extremely cumbersome to use - requiring, for instance, that requests be digitally signed. (*) Has anybody developed a proxy server for Summon that makes its API public (e.g. receives requests, signs them, forwards them to Summon, and relays the result back to a HTTP client?) Serials Solutions publishes some PHP5 and Ruby sample code in two API libraries (**), but these don't appear to be fully fledged nor easy-to-install solutions. (Easy to install here is defined as an average systems librarian can download them, provide the API key, and have a running solution in less time than it takes to install Wordpress.) Thanks! - Godmar (*) http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/help/api/authentication (**) http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/help/api/code
Re: [CODE4LIB] Q: Summon API Service?
Looks like a more recent version of the Ruby library can be found here: https://github.com/summon/summon.rb Jason On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:46 PM, Godmar Back god...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Unlike Link/360, Serials Solution's Summon API is extremely cumbersome to use - requiring, for instance, that requests be digitally signed. (*) Has anybody developed a proxy server for Summon that makes its API public (e.g. receives requests, signs them, forwards them to Summon, and relays the result back to a HTTP client?) Serials Solutions publishes some PHP5 and Ruby sample code in two API libraries (**), but these don't appear to be fully fledged nor easy-to-install solutions. (Easy to install here is defined as an average systems librarian can download them, provide the API key, and have a running solution in less time than it takes to install Wordpress.) Thanks! - Godmar (*) http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/help/api/authentication (**) http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/help/api/code
[CODE4LIB] Call for Participation - Economies of the Commons 2: Paying the costs of making things free - 12-13 November, Amsterdam
Economies of the Commons 2 - Paying the costs of making things free www.ecommons.eu International conference, seminar and public evening programs Conference dates: 12-13 November 2010. De Balie, Amsterdam Pre-conference: November 11. Hilversum (on collaboration with the Open Video Alliance) Economies of the Commons 2 is a critical examination of the economics of on-line public domain and open access resources of information, knowledge, and media (the digital commons¹). The past 10 years have seen the rise of a variety of such open content resources attracting millions of users, sometimes on a daily basis. The impact of projects such as Wikipedia, Images of the Future, and Europeana testify to the vibrancy of the new digital public domain. No longer left to the exclusive domains of digital insiders¹, open content resources are rapidly becoming widely used and highly popular. While protagonists of open content praise its low-cost accessibility and collaborative structures, critics claim it undermines the established ³gate keeping² functions of authors, the academy, and professional institutions while lacking a reliable business model of its own. Economies of the Commons 2 provides a timely and crucial analysis of sustainable economic models that can promote and safeguard the online public domain. We want to find out what the new hybrid solutions are for archiving, access and reuse of on-line content that can both create viable markets and serve the public interest in a competitive global 21st century information economy. Economies of the Commons 2 consists of an international seminar on Open Video hosted by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on November 11 in Hilversum, a two day international conference and two public evening programs on November 12 and 13 at De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam. The event builds upon the successful Economies of the Commons conference organised in April 2008. Confirmed speakers include: Charlotte Hess (Syracuse University Keynote), Ben Moskowitz (Open Video Alliance), Simona Levi (Free Culture Forum), Bas Savenije (KB National library of the Netherlands), Yann Moulier Boutang (Multitudes), Peter B. Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Harry Verwayen (Europeana), James Boyle (Duke University), Jeff Ubois (DTN), Sandra Fauconnier (NIMK), Dymitri Kleiner (Telekommunisten), Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard (Royal Library Denmark), Nathaniel Tkacz (University of Melbourne), a.o. Organisers: Images for the Future Consortium / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision / De Balie / Institute of Network Cultures, University of Amsterdam. For detailed program information check our website: www.ecommons.eu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Call for Participation - Economies of the Commons 2: Paying the costs of making things free - 12-13 November, Amsterdam
The conference sounds very interesting. Will the talks be webcast or archived for viewing for those of us who won't be able to attend in person? Thanks, -Raymond On 10/27/10 10:04 AM, Johan Oomen wrote: Economies of the Commons 2 - Paying the costs of making things free www.ecommons.eu International conference, seminar and public evening programs Conference dates: 12-13 November 2010. De Balie, Amsterdam Pre-conference: November 11. Hilversum (on collaboration with the Open Video Alliance) Economies of the Commons 2 is a critical examination of the economics of on-line public domain and open access resources of information, knowledge, and media (the Œdigital commons¹). The past 10 years have seen the rise of a variety of such open content resources attracting millions of users, sometimes on a daily basis. The impact of projects such as Wikipedia, Images of the Future, and Europeana testify to the vibrancy of the new digital public domain. No longer left to the exclusive domains of digital Œinsiders¹, open content resources are rapidly becoming widely used and highly popular. While protagonists of open content praise its low-cost accessibility and collaborative structures, critics claim it undermines the established ³gate keeping² functions of authors, the academy, and professional institutions while lacking a reliable business model of its own. Economies of the Commons 2 provides a timely and crucial analysis of sustainable economic models that can promote and safeguard the online public domain. We want to find out what the new hybrid solutions are for archiving, access and reuse of on-line content that can both create viable markets and serve the public interest in a competitive global 21st century information economy. Economies of the Commons 2 consists of an international seminar on Open Video hosted by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on November 11 in Hilversum, a two day international conference and two public evening programs on November 12 and 13 at De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam. The event builds upon the successful Economies of the Commons conference organised in April 2008. Confirmed speakers include: Charlotte Hess (Syracuse University Keynote), Ben Moskowitz (Open Video Alliance), Simona Levi (Free Culture Forum), Bas Savenije (KB National library of the Netherlands), Yann Moulier Boutang (Multitudes), Peter B. Kaufman (Intelligent Television), Harry Verwayen (Europeana), James Boyle (Duke University), Jeff Ubois (DTN), Sandra Fauconnier (NIMK), Dymitri Kleiner (Telekommunisten), Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard (Royal Library Denmark), Nathaniel Tkacz (University of Melbourne), a.o. Organisers: Images for the Future Consortium / Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision / De Balie / Institute of Network Cultures, University of Amsterdam. For detailed program information check our website: www.ecommons.eu
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for?
Crosswalking doesn't hold water as a justification for MARCXML. To be fair, though, most of us have simpler cross walking needs than OCLC. And if I need to go from binary MARC to some XML schema (which I sometimes do), then MARC-XML and the XSLT style sheets at LOC seem like a pretty good starting point to me. Better than starting from scratch. Which isn't to say that that approach is always the right one for every project. I very much agree with MJ: If it works for you, use it. If not, don't. But if someone else has a better, general purpose solution to this problem, then by all means open source that puppy and let the rest of us have at it! --Dave == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Smith,Devon [smit...@oclc.org] Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 7:44 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for? One way is to first transform the MARC into MARC-XML. Then you can use XSLT to crosswalk the MARC-XML into that other schema. Very handy. Your criticisms of MARC-XML all seem to presume that MARC-XML is the goal, the end point in the process. But MARC-XML is really better seen as a utility, a middle step between binary MARC and the real goal, which is some other useful and interesting XML schema. Unless useful and interesting is a euphemism for Dublin Core, then using XSLT for crosswalking is not really an option. Well, not a good option. On the other end of the spectrum, assume Onix for useful and interesting and XSLT simply won't work. Crosswalking doesn't hold water as a justification for MARCXML. /dev -- Devon Smith Consulting Software Engineer OCLC Research http://www.oclc.org/research/people/smith.htm -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Walker, David Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 8:57 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for? b) expanding it to be actual useful and interesting. But here I think you've missed the very utility of MARC-XML. Let's say you have a binary MARC file (the kind that comes out of an ILS) and want to transform that into MODS, Dublin Core, or maybe some other XML schema. How would you do that? One way is to first transform the MARC into MARC-XML. Then you can use XSLT to crosswalk the MARC-XML into that other schema. Very handy. Your criticisms of MARC-XML all seem to presume that MARC-XML is the goal, the end point in the process. But MARC-XML is really better seen as a utility, a middle step between binary MARC and the real goal, which is some other useful and interesting XML schema. --Dave == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Alexander Johannesen [alexander.johanne...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 12:38 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] MARCXML - What is it for? Hiya, On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 6:26 AM, Nate Vack njv...@wisc.edu wrote: Switching to an XML format doesn't help with that at all. I'm willing to take it further and say that MARCXML was the worst thing the library world ever did. Some might argue it was a good first step, and that it was better with something rather than nothing, to which I respond ; Poppycock! MARCXML is nothing short of evil. Not only does it goes against every principal of good XML anywhere (don't rely on whitespace, structure over code, namespace conventions, identity management, document control, separation of entities and properties, and on and on), it breaks the ontological commitment that a better treatment of the MARC data could bring, deterring people from actually a) using the darn thing as anything but a bare minimal crutch, and b) expanding it to be actual useful and interesting. The quicker the library world can get rid of this monstrosity, the better, although I doubt that will ever happen; it will hang around like a foul stench for as long as there is MARC in the world. A long time. A long sad time. A few extra notes; http://shelterit.blogspot.com/2008/09/marcxml-beast-of-burden.html Can you tell I'm not a fan? :) Kind regards, Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] Django
On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 3:09 AM, Elliot Hallmark permafact...@gmail.com wrote: However, I switched to this other scripting language, python, because it could do things php cant. Not to start a flame, but that's a rather big statement which I think A) needs backing up, and B) is probably untrue. For instance, my first project in python involved capturing keyboard input before windows heard about it. Then I kept discovering amazing things python can do that php cant. For instance, PHP can do this fine. Was there something in particular you're thinking of that PHP can't do? I helped write a non-sequential optical ray tracer in python. When it needed to be faster there were several libraries for writing C code directly in a pythonic syntax. Python has hooks into everything, like optical character recognition, electronic music sequeuencing/generation, serial port i/o. Again, PHP the same. For the sophisticated hacker, most languages can be tweaked to solve almost any problem. And I'm not even suggesting that you use PHP. Happy hacking. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
I believe the software documentation suggests a limit to put a stop to mail loops. Peter On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). -- Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.orgtel:+1-678-235-2955 Assistant Directorhttp://dltj.org/about/ Lyrasis --Great Libraries. Strong Communities. Innovative Answers. The Disruptive Library Technology Jesterhttp://dltj.org/ Attrib-Noncomm-Share http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
Alexander Johannesen wrote: Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not Pretty sure it wasn't depressing to the vast majority of the listserv audience. That was/is a discussion that benefited from a timeout period, like you give the pre-schoolers.
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
+1 to the this discussion is really depressing me camp. On Oct 27, 2010, at 12:53 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: Alexander Johannesen wrote: Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not Pretty sure it wasn't depressing to the vast majority of the listserv audience. That was/is a discussion that benefited from a timeout period, like you give the pre-schoolers.
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
I'd like to once again point out the 50-message limit, and the fact that this thread is rapidly chewing through that 50. Surely there are some code or lib topics folks want to discuss. -Mike
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 6:53 AM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: Pretty sure it wasn't depressing to the vast majority of the listserv audience. That was/is a discussion that benefited from a timeout period, like you give the pre-schoolers. Given we're adults, and not in pre-school, I disagree. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
FWIW, the daily-threshold limit on a LISTSERV(tm) list can easily be set to any value by the listowner; it can also be manually overridden by the owner in specific cases with a release command (which retains the limit but allows continued distribution on the day the limit is reached). Using the threshold -- which halts *all* list conversations and thereby penalizes all listmembers -- as a timeout tool to stop specific threads seems like a rather broad-brush strategy to my mind. regards, - mt -- * Marc Truitt Associate Director, Bibliographic and Information Voice : 780-492-4770 Technology Services e-mail : marc.tru...@ualberta.ca University of Alberta Libraries fax: 780-492-9243 Cameron Library cell : 780-217-0356 Edmonton, AB T6G 2J8 But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I've changed Well something's lost, but something's gained In living every day... -- J. Mitchell (1967) *
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 6:58 AM, Chris Fitzpatrick cf...@stanford.edu wrote: +1 to the this discussion is really depressing me camp. Ok, ok, I get the message. This is no place to voice strong opinions about bad library tech, and my (different, but not bad) language nor stance (contrarian, but not accusatory) are simply not acceptable. I'm outta here. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
Square root of minus one = Jason Fowler, BA, GCFA, CISSP Programmer Analyst UBC Library Systems jason.fow...@ubc.ca On 10-10-27 3:18 PM, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress r...@loc.gov wrote: I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar
Re: [CODE4LIB] Django
For instance, my first project in python involved capturing keyboard input before windows heard about it. Then I kept discovering amazing things python can do that php cant. For instance, PHP can do this fine. Was there something in particular you're thinking of that PHP can't do? Yes, It was irresponsible for me to make a blanket statement like that without having very much experience with php. I used php to make a website from data in a database. Other things beyond that seemed awkward, difficult, or impossible from what I knew. python immediately jumped out to me as a tool more suited to these tasks. I guess it was just the way I came across things, my own personal history. From my experience, it seemed php was a server side scripting language. Can you write a php script that gets key presses and doesn't pass them along to windows to process? I thought the OS would have to process the key press, pass it along to the php server and then php could process it. (pyhook) Also, how would you go about using a GPU from a graphics card in php? (python cuda in google gives many results) Has anyone written a scientific computing package along the lines of matlab in php (scipy, numpy, matplotlib)? Or a non-sequential optical raytracer? if you wanted to write a web interface for GNU cash or another well established accounting program, could you do it? (GNU cash has python bindings to its internal functions, I believe no other scripting language can access the things python can. This is the case with many programs, python bindings but nada for php). please feel free to point me to the php equivilants of pyhook, pycuda, scipy, numpy and some examples of widely used programs with php bindings. For the sophisticated hacker, most languages can be tweaked to solve almost any problem. I am sure that is true. Though, I feel many for many tasks php would require quite a bit more tweaking than python, with much less community support behind it (I mean, google comes up with fewer helpful links to the problems I sited above). Maybe Php can accomplish many things by calling external programs. Is that the case? and then are you limited to whatever commandline options the external program has? My impression, based on very little experience with php, is that if you asked in a forum about using php for advanced scientific computing, or writing music generation/sequencing software, knowledgeable folks would first ask: are you sure you want to do this in php? how about java or python? That said, php may be superior for generating websites from databases. That is why it is difficult to find help through google about php, because all the searches turn up websites generated by php, not written about it. I'll be more careful about my praising of python over other scripting languages in the future. Thanks, Elliot
[CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django]
Hola, compadre, Elliot Hallmark permafact...@gmail.com wrote: Other things beyond that seemed awkward, difficult, or impossible from what I knew. python immediately jumped out to me as a tool more suited to these tasks. The fact that Python has a looping run-time environment is, of course, a give-away to why most people think this, and perhaps to some degree, rightly so, but PHP has got the same, it's just that *most* people use PHP through some Apache module as a request/response module. Indeed, that's where it started, and that's its forte. From my experience, it seemed php was a server side scripting language. Strictly speaking, so is Python. Can you write a php script that gets key presses and doesn't pass them along to windows to process? I thought the OS would have to process the key press, pass it along to the php server and then php could process it. (pyhook) A couple of obvious candidates; - http://gtk.php.net/ - http://winbinder.org/ Also, how would you go about using a GPU from a graphics card in php? (python cuda in google gives many results) PHP is just a C program with various bindings, so I suspect in the same way Python would do it. Whether anyone has done it, though, is a different question. Has anyone written a scientific computing package along the lines of matlab in php (scipy, numpy, matplotlib)? Or a non-sequential optical raytracer? Not seen any scientific packages, but I've seen a few ray-tracers, although they're all demo apps and fun toys (although I think that applies to Python, too). It's not so much about whether you can do it or not (you can), but whether it makes sense to do so (it mostly doesn't). Having said that, there's nothing stopping me making a local run-time PHP program to do either, it's just that it's PHP and hence slower than C. Python, too, is slower than C, except when it runs some C module, which, uh, is C, the same as if PHP runs some C module. For example, one of the fastest and best XSLT 1.0 processors and XML libraries out there is XMLlib and XSLTlib (RedHat and Gnome?), written in C, and is the defacto PHP XML and XSLT modules used. Whatever you've got that runs in C, you can run in PHP, it's not really a big deal, it just depends on whether it makes sense to patch it up with the way you use your PHP. if you wanted to write a web interface for GNU cash or another well established accounting program, could you do it? Sure. Here's someone who'dunnit back in 2008; http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/LJV4vT1u2IqE3LstFA1V please feel free to point me to the php equivilants of pyhook, pycuda, scipy, numpy and some examples of widely used programs with php bindings. You can bind PHP and Python the same, it's just a matter of doing and whether it makes sense to do so. It's *not* a question of /if/ you can do it, but if you /should/ do it. Your milage *will* vary. For the sophisticated hacker, most languages can be tweaked to solve almost any problem. I am sure that is true. Though, I feel many for many tasks php would require quite a bit more tweaking than python, with much less community support behind it (I mean, google comes up with fewer helpful links to the problems I sited above). Maybe your Google-foo is weak. :) My impression, based on very little experience with php, is that if you asked in a forum about using php for advanced scientific computing, or writing music generation/sequencing software, knowledgeable folks would first ask: are you sure you want to do this in php? how about java or python? Again, probably because they don't realize it can be done in a non-request/response kinda way with PHP as well. But then, PHP itself isn't all that fast if you have little knowledge of how to do proper PHP, but this is a pitfall in any language. That said, php may be superior for generating websites from databases. Not really, but the installations you'll find in the wild is readily configured for it, so it's easy to get going. However, this has little to do with the language itself, and more to do with default packaging of it. Anyway, I wasn't meaning to promote PHP over Python, just pointing out that PHP is a lot more (and more often still, a lot better) than what most people think it is. Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
Ray, I think that the constraint makes more sense as a positive real number. While the length of a thread will never be exactly a non-integer length, it will eventually exceed any finite real-valued limit imposed, which is all that's necessary. (Actually, the non-negative part is optional. A limit that is = 0 will still allow the first message through before the list is throttled.) - David On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 18:18, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress r...@loc.gov wrote: I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
David -- I think we need to test the last assumption against the real code. While it is a rational (so to speak) interpretation, the code might be buggy enough to not let any messages through -- including the first -- when the limit is set to 0. Peter On Oct 27, 2010, at 7:47 PM, David Fiander wrote: Ray, I think that the constraint makes more sense as a positive real number. While the length of a thread will never be exactly a non-integer length, it will eventually exceed any finite real-valued limit imposed, which is all that's necessary. (Actually, the non-negative part is optional. A limit that is = 0 will still allow the first message through before the list is throttled.) - David On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 18:18, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress r...@loc.gov wrote: I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar -- Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.orgtel:+1-678-235-2955 Assistant Directorhttp://dltj.org/about/ Lyrasis --Great Libraries. Strong Communities. Innovative Answers. The Disruptive Library Technology Jesterhttp://dltj.org/ Attrib-Noncomm-Share http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
We have now used one third of today's allocation in discussing the size of the daily allocation. Just sayin', is all. On 28 October 2010 01:04, Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.org wrote: David -- I think we need to test the last assumption against the real code. While it is a rational (so to speak) interpretation, the code might be buggy enough to not let any messages through -- including the first -- when the limit is set to 0. Peter On Oct 27, 2010, at 7:47 PM, David Fiander wrote: Ray, I think that the constraint makes more sense as a positive real number. While the length of a thread will never be exactly a non-integer length, it will eventually exceed any finite real-valued limit imposed, which is all that's necessary. (Actually, the non-negative part is optional. A limit that is = 0 will still allow the first message through before the list is throttled.) - David On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 18:18, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress r...@loc.gov wrote: I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar -- Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.org tel:+1-678-235-2955 Assistant Director http://dltj.org/about/ Lyrasis -- Great Libraries. Strong Communities. Innovative Answers. The Disruptive Library Technology Jester http://dltj.org/ Attrib-Noncomm-Share http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django]
On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Alexander Johannesen alexander.johanne...@gmail.com wrote: From my experience, it seemed php was a server side scripting language. Strictly speaking, so is Python. Actually, Python is a general purpose programming language. It was not created specifically for server side scripting like PHP was. But it is very suitable to that task. Not seen any scientific packages, but I've seen a few ray-tracers, although they're all demo apps and fun toys (although I think that applies to Python, too). No, that does not apply to Python. Python is widely used for hardcore scientific computing. It is also the most important scripting language in large scale CGI settings, used in companies such as Indusrial Light Magic, Weta Digital and so on. Python has become so important for CGI in recent years that Autodesk had to embed Python in its Maya application even though Maya has always had its own embedded scripting language, called MEL. Nuke, a red hot 3D compositor that was massively used in the production of Avatar, is completely scriptable in Python. In fact, its entire UI Is made with Python. http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/nuke/ You can bind PHP and Python the same, it's just a matter of doing and whether it makes sense to do so. It's *not* a question of /if/ you can do it, but if you /should/ do it. Your milage *will* vary. For the sophisticated hacker, most languages can be tweaked to solve almost any problem. I am sure that is true. Though, I feel many for many tasks php would require quite a bit more tweaking than python, with much less community support behind it (I mean, google comes up with fewer helpful links to the problems I sited above). Maybe your Google-foo is weak. :) Or maybe he's just realizing that outside of server side web scripting, PHP is just not so widely used. Anyway, I wasn't meaning to promote PHP over Python, just pointing out that PHP is a lot more (and more often still, a lot better) than what most people think it is. Having used both languages, I discovered that Python is easier for most tasks, and one reason is that the libraries that come with Python are extremely robust, well tested and consistent. PHP is very practical for server-side web scripting, but it's libraries are unfortunately full of gotchas, traps and unexpected behaviour. A key reason for that is the fact that Python has always had an exception-handling mechanism while PHP has grown something like that only a few years ago, and many libraries don't use it, so whenever you call a function you never know whether the result will be a real value or some error code. This is very error-prone and testing for errors on many calls makes the program logic harder to follow. So, I my opinion, PHP is great at what it does best: enabling quick server-side Web scripting on almost any hosting service on Earth. For everything else, it is very worthwhile to learn and use a general purpose dynamic language such as Python, Ruby or Perl. Sorry for the rant. I must confess I am a founder of the Brazilian Python Association and was its first president, so you can call me a Python advocate. -- Luciano Ramalho programador repentista || stand-up programmer Twitter: @luciano
Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django]
Olá, como vai? Luciano Ramalho luci...@ramalho.org wrote: Actually, Python is a general purpose programming language. It was not created specifically for server side scripting like PHP was. But it is very suitable to that task. I'm not sure talking about what something used to be is as interesting as talking about what it is. Both Pyhton and PHP can share whatever moniker we choose (scripting-language, programming language, real-time, half-time, bytecoded, virtual, etc.). Not seen any scientific packages, but I've seen a few ray-tracers, although they're all demo apps and fun toys (although I think that applies to Python, too). No, that does not apply to Python. Python is widely used for hardcore scientific computing. I was referring to the ray-tracing part. It is also the most important scripting language in large scale CGI settings Yes, Python is widely used for scripting up interfaces into other more complex systems. But rarely is the core of the thing written entirely in Python. Maybe your Google-foo is weak. :) Or maybe he's just realizing that outside of server side web scripting, PHP is just not so widely used. Absolutely, and fair enough. Having used both languages, I discovered that Python is easier for most tasks, and one reason is that the libraries that come with Python are extremely robust, well tested and consistent. Hmm. PHP is extremely robust and well-tested, but yes, it's not all that consistent, especially not before version 5.2+. However, things have moved on, and with release 6 around the corner things will be tighter still. Just like the first versions of Python were interesting, so was PHP's, but where the biggest problem with the evolution of PHP was the very fact that it was the most popular language for rapid web development by far. PHP is very practical for server-side web scripting, but it's libraries are unfortunately full of gotchas, traps and unexpected behaviour. There's gotchas in every language, even Python. A key reason for that is the fact that Python has always had an exception-handling mechanism while PHP has grown something like that only a few years ago True enough. But earlier versions of any language are less desirable than the latest versions, so I'm not sure this is a prevailing argument for the horribleness of PHP or any language. These things evolve. PHP 5.3+ and soon 6 are looking very good, indeed, but yes, we will just have to live with a poor reputation brought on by the big number of users and the pre 5.2+ era. So, I my opinion, PHP is great at what it does best: enabling quick server-side Web scripting on almost any hosting service on Earth. I'm fairly sure you can say that because you haven't done much other kind of PHP work. :) For everything else, it is very worthwhile to learn and use a general purpose dynamic language such as Python, Ruby or Perl. Of course. Developers should learn many of languages, and choose wisely the language best suited to the problem at hand. Sorry for the rant. I must confess I am a founder of the Brazilian Python Association and was its first president, so you can call me a Python advocate. No bias at all, really. :) Kind regards, Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
Come on guys, I was just getting my popcorn ready. On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com wrote: We have now used one third of today's allocation in discussing the size of the daily allocation. Just sayin', is all. On 28 October 2010 01:04, Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.org wrote: David -- I think we need to test the last assumption against the real code. While it is a rational (so to speak) interpretation, the code might be buggy enough to not let any messages through -- including the first -- when the limit is set to 0. Peter On Oct 27, 2010, at 7:47 PM, David Fiander wrote: Ray, I think that the constraint makes more sense as a positive real number. While the length of a thread will never be exactly a non-integer length, it will eventually exceed any finite real-valued limit imposed, which is all that's necessary. (Actually, the non-negative part is optional. A limit that is = 0 will still allow the first message through before the list is throttled.) - David On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 18:18, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress r...@loc.gov wrote: I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar -- Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.orgtel:+1-678-235-2955 Assistant Directorhttp://dltj.org/about/ Lyrasis --Great Libraries. Strong Communities. Innovative Answers. The Disruptive Library Technology Jesterhttp://dltj.org/ Attrib-Noncomm-Share http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia
I expect the length of the thread to be irrational; so perhaps that's not a problem. On Oct 27, 2010, at 6:18 PM, Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress wrote: I think the constraint is that it has to be a rational number. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:58 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] mailing list administratativia I vote for changing the limit threshold to PI * (eventual length of this meta-thread). On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:44 AM, Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu wrote: Can that limit threshold be raised? If so, are there reasons why it should not be raised? Is it to throttle spam or something? 50 seems rather low, and it's rather depressing to have a lively discussion throttled like that. Not to mention I thought I was simply kicked out for living things up (especially given my reasonable follow-up was where the throttling began). Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- Eric Hellman President, Gluejar, Inc. 41 Watchung Plaza, #132 Montclair, NJ 07042 USA e...@hellman.net http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ @gluejar
