Re: [CODE4LIB] free HTML text editors - a compilation of responses
vi On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Sarles Patricia (18K500) psar...@schools.nyc.gov wrote: Thank you to everyone who weighed in on free HTML text editors for my old Macs running 10.5.8. The only one that seemed to work is Thimble. My Macs at school are just too old - even for cloud-based editors. I looked into CodeAnywhere and Codio, which both worked on my Mac at home but not at work. Just in case anyone is interested in a compilation, I have compiled. I really appreciate everyone's help and forgive me if I missed one or two responses: There is no reason to install an editor for this purpose. Mozilla has a suite of free apps for this purpose at Webmaker: https://webmaker.org Thimble is the editor, and I think it's very nice for students that there is immediate feedback so you can see how your change affects the rendering: https://thimble.webmaker.org/ -- As a bit of a left field alternative there’s always Vim. Ok it might not be the best introduction to text editors, but given it exists on pretty much every platform (including Android and iPhone/iPad - http://www.vim.org/download.php) there’d be no excuses for not doing the homework. The main Mac port (https://code.google.com/p/macvim/) has legacy versions back to 10.4. However, this might be more of an extra credit editor given that it takes *some* getting used to. There is a game (http://vim-adventures.com/) which can help with learning some of the basic Vim controls. -- I used to use Smultron (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/15114/smultron) on my PowerBook G3. It's no Sublime text, but it does a pretty good job as far as GUI based text editors goes. I think someone forked the project and it's known as Fraise now. Depending on your computer's capabilities, that might be better or worse to run. -- Well... you could see if SeaMonkey runs - it includes Composer which gives you both WYSIWIG and HTML source editing - or it's later derivatives NVU and Komposer. Since those are relatively old, they should run on a circa 2008 Mac. Of course any text editor will let you edit HTML - and, assuming you're running OS X, you've got unix underneath. You've pretty much got your pick of anything that will run in a console window or an X-window. Your real problem might be running a browser that's new enough to support HTML5 and CSS3. Otherwise, editing HTML isn't going to do you much good. Apple won't let the most recent version of Safari run on 10.6.8 (you're stuck at 5.1.10), but Firefox (38.0.1) and Chrome (42.0.2311.152) are both fine. -- Another thing you might want to check out - my alma mater has a CS MOOC that's aimed at supporting middle/high school CS classes and teachers - http://www.muddx.com/courses/HMC/MyCS/Middle-years_Computer_Science/about . -- You might want to check out https://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_6/Friday/OSX_text_editor - Boston Python Workshop has spent a while coming up with bulletproof instructions for people with a wide range of experience. The links at that page no longer work but the files are still available at Sourceforge, so you can make an amended version easily enough. -- If you do not need all the bells and whistles I would recommend TextWrangler. Free versions should still be available online and its bigger brother BBEdit is overkill for basic web editing. Actually, the significant difference between TextWrangler and BBEdit is that BBEdits has a number of features that are specifically for web design, that don't exist in TextWrangler. Looking at the version of BBEdit 9.1 that I have installed, the majority of it is in the 'Markup' menu: * Close current tag / Balance tags * Check syntax * Check links * Check accessibility * Cleaners for GoLive/PageMill/HomePage/DreamWeaver * Convert to HTML / XHTML * Menu items to insert tags (which then give what attributes are allowed) * Menu item to insert CSS * Preview in ... (gives a list of installed web browsers) ... That said, TextWrangler is still a good free editor -- and I personally rarely ever use the insert tags/CSS items (as I've been writing HTML for ... crap ... I feel old ... 20+ years). But to say that BBEdit is overkill for web editing is just wrong -- the majority of the feature differences are *specifically* for web editing. -- There is always the good old standby of emacs: http://aquamacs.org/ -- The Macs are from 2008 and running I believe 10.6.8. I can double check that when I get to work, but I am right now working on a 2007 Mac running 10.6.8 so the ones at work might be running a slightly newer version, but they are definitely running OS 10 something. This eliminates Atom.io and Sublime Text 3 (emphases on 3 because it *may* work with Sublime Text 2). I'm having a hard time calling those old ;-) but that's computing for you
Re: [CODE4LIB] Python and Ruby
Real coders roll their own programming languages. -Original Message- From: Francis Kayiwa kay...@uic.edu Sent: Jul 30, 2013 10:45 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Python and Ruby On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 11:21:24AM -0400, Andreas Orphanides wrote: Whatever; if you're not programming Turing machines made from two rocks and a roll of toilet paper, then you're not a REAL coder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8DiOthAKek ./fxk -- H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L. Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude. -- Maxwell Bodenheim
Re: [CODE4LIB] Python and Ruby
Somebody needs to invent one, throw it out there and see what happens. -Original Message- From: Ed Summers e...@pobox.com Sent: Jul 29, 2013 4:06 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Python and Ruby On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: Over the NISO standardization process required to form the exploratory committee. Thanks for answering the question better than I could have ever dreamed of answering it. //Ed
Re: [CODE4LIB] Libraries and IT Innovation
I have come to believe that to really innovate, one has to stop thinking in terms of clouds (whatever the hell those things are) tables, relational database, MARC records, the technology du jour. Throw that all away. Don't even think about it. Even more important, don't worry about what other people are doing or thinking. Don't even get caught up in programming languages or operating systems. That's like being a person driven by his tools. Find ideas in other things beyond the techie stuff. I have found that Zen Buddhism has a lot to say about semantics and how words are only imperfect labels to meaning. Come up with an idea and keep working at it, even if it may take decades. Don't worry about anything else. Listen to your critics, but don't let them drive you. That's how innovation happens. -Original Message- From: Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com Sent: Jul 17, 2013 1:01 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Libraries and IT Innovation Hello Code4Lib folks, I was having a conversation with my father, who is an enterprise architect, a while ago when I was working on a presentation. I thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to toss out some of the ideas and see if anybody was using them in their libraries. We were discussing innovation, and he was telling me about the areas of innovation his field was looking into. He was saying how the business IT realm was seeing four main areas for innovation: mobile computing, social computing, business intelligence/analytics, and cloud computing. While these are four different areas he was noting how they all relate to making content active, having all this information do something either for the user or the institution. He provided an example of making content active through the area of big data. For those not familiar with big data Wikipedia describes it as “a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications”. An example he mentioned of how this was useful was with Amazon.com’s search logs as they have quite a bit of information about their users and their searches. These logs and the customer information can be analyzed using big data solutions to see who was searching, what they were they searching for, the terms they used, and what worked. This information then can be taken and compared to others who have similar backgrounds or have done similar searches and provide them with suggestions for items others have found useful, as well as search results slightly more tailored to them. It also lets Amazon adjust their controlled vocabulary so all customers have better search results. All of which makes the content active. Over the course of this conversation I was thinking on how some of this could be applied to the library realm. Mobile computing is an area we as a profession are getting better at, but by no means are we there yet. I have seen some really good mobile sites for libraries, but other tools we have like CONTENTdm or DSpace are not mobile friendly. I am not trying to pick on them, they are very good toolsets, but if you have ever tried using either on a smartphone they are clunky and hard to work with. Still on the whole libraries are making progress with mobile computing. I also see the social aspect of this shining through quite well too. Many libraries have taken well to social media and have come up with some ingenious ways to utilize it to their advantage. As well the push for collaborative space in the physical building plays well into this, though I wonder if there is anything else that can be done to open up this collaborative space in the digital realm. I know many of the toolsets are providing some good social options. I was aware of some of the collaborative abilities of institutional repository software, and I just recently was introduced to Primo and really liked their shelf options and the potential for collaboration it gives. Obviously it depends on the institution, but I do wonder if there anymore things that can be done in the digital social realm to provide for the patrons. As for business intelligence and analytics I figured those do not necessarily apply in quite the same way as business IT, but there is still some cross over. Libraries and archives both take a bucket loads of statistics so there might be some interesting ways to look at those statistics that have yet to be considered? This is not an area I have much experience with but I am sure others have some interesting ideas about it. I do see ways that the big data analytics I mentioned before potentially can be useful in making the library catalog and discovery more responsive. I can see using it to examine the search terms that the patrons use to search, what they are trying to find, what worked, and what did not work to improve our thesauri so that relevant items can appear
[CODE4LIB] test
This is a test. Please ignore.
[CODE4LIB] Avanti Nova version 0.3.1
Avanti Nova version 0.3.1 has been released. Go to
http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com for download and documentation. This
version further develops object sets by adding a command to find the
intersection of two sets. It also introduces two system sets: {everything} is
an immutable set that contains all objects in a Novaspace. {current} contains
all objects added to a Novaspace since its last reset to null. More about how
sets can be used will be forthcoming.
Next steps: In an upcoming version, as Nova evolves from prototype to
something practical, a new core will be included that interfaces a real DBMS,
either MySQL or an embedded database solution.
Peter Schlumpf
Avanti Library Systems
www.avantilibrarysystems.com
[CODE4LIB] Avanti Nova version 0.3
Avanti Nova version 0.3 has been released. This version focuses on further developing the Nova scripting language among other things, including running Nova script files. I have also implemented the concept of object sets which may have many possibilities down the road. Right now Nova is still a prototype and an idea for a system that manages linked data. There is still a lot of boilerplate underneath, as I am further developing and fleshing out the scripting language. I am looking into the ability to embed Nova code in documents or HTML files. Also thinking about flow control methods. Soon I plan to replace the boilerplate with an interface to a database system (mySQL?) that can scale for real applications, at which point the practical uses for Nova will become more apparent. For more information and to download the software go to http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com Peter Schlumpf Avanti Library Systems pschlu...@gmail.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] You are a *pedantic* coder. So what am I?
Reminds me of the Zen saying: In the beginner's mind there are many
possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few.
-Original Message-
From: Justin Coyne jus...@curationexperts.com
Sent: Feb 21, 2013 11:59 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] You are a *pedantic* coder. So what am I?
Ian, I have to caution against taking the attitude we only code in what we
already know. Of course you are going to be able to hit the ground
running faster in what you are expert in. Putting on the blinders is a
great way to become irrelevant in the technology sphere. If you want to be
a better coder, there is no better way than to learn a new language, and
actually do a project in it. The insights you find in doing this will make
you a better coder when your go back to doing whatever it was you were
doing before.
-Justin
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Ian Walls iwa...@library.umass.eduwrote:
Agreed. Each language has its own strengths and weaknesses. Pick the one
that works best for your situation, factoring in not only what the
application needs to do, but your and your team's level of experience, and
the overall community context in which the project will live. The
peculiarities of a given languages truth tables, for example, can easily
get washed out of the calculation when you consider what languages you know
and what platforms your institution supports.
-Ian
-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
Ethan Gruber
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 12:45 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] You are a *pedantic* coder. So what am I?
Look, I'm sure we can list the many ways different languages fail to meet
our expectations, but is this really a constructive line of conversation?
-1
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Justin Coyne
jus...@curationexperts.comwrote:
I did misspeak a bit. You can override static methods in Java. My
major issue is that there is no getClass() within a static method,
so when the static method is being run in the context of the
inheriting class it is unaware of its own run context.
For example: I want the output to be Hi from bar, but it's Hi from
foo:
class Foo {
public static void sayHello() {
hi();
}
public static void hi() {
System.out.println(Hi from foo);
}
}
class Bar extends Foo {
public static void hi() {
System.out.println(Hi from bar);
}
}
class Test {
public static void main(String [ ] args) {
Bar.sayHello();
}
}
-Justin
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Eric Hellman e...@hellman.net wrote:
OK, pedant, tell us why you think methods that can be over-ridden
are static.
Also, tell us why you think classes in Java are not instances of
java.lang.Class
On Feb 18, 2013, at 1:39 PM, Justin Coyne
jus...@curationexperts.com
wrote:
To be pedantic, Ruby and JavaScript are more Object Oriented than
Java because they don't have primitives and (in Ruby's case)
because classes
are
themselves objects. Unlike Java, both Python and Ruby can properly
override of static methods on sub-classes. The Java language made
many compromises as it was designed as a bridge to Object Oriented
programming
for programmers who were used to writing C and C++.
-Justin
Re: [CODE4LIB] Video from the Conference
Thanks Francis and everyone else who made the conference available via streaming video for those of us who could not attend. It was great! Peter -Original Message- From: Francis Kayiwa kay...@uic.edu Sent: Feb 15, 2013 4:56 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Video from the Conference In order to keep myself honest and not use up Tara Robertson's generosity. I will be uploading the files to my YouTube account as they become available. Since the Lightning Talks work better with the YouTube 15 minute limit cap they will go up first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRVYmdXJ8OQ Cheers, ./fxk -- Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.
Re: [CODE4LIB] souvenirs
Navy Pier, perhaps. -Original Message- From: Will Clarke clark...@wfu.edu Sent: Feb 13, 2013 9:56 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] souvenirs Can anyone recommend some good / cheap places to get some Chicago souvenirs and t-shirts?
Re: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I?
If a person writes programs -- code, then one is a coder. It's as simple as that, whether one has a computer science degree or not. I have always been puzzled by the self-consciousness betraying a lack of confidence that librarians suffer about what they do. Is Librarianship a profession? seems to be a perpetually unanswered question that I have never seen anywhere else. Chemists, doctors and lawyers don't seem to have this sort of second guessing themselves about what they do. Why should those in the library profession? Andromeda's short presentation was a good one. Peter -Original Message- From: Jason Griffey grif...@gmail.com Sent: Feb 13, 2013 8:44 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I? Shirley, I would hesitantly call myself a coder. I would _never_ call myself a software engineer. I am also a librarian. I think what Andromeda was probably arguing (not that I would deign to put words in her mouth) was that we should get over our imposter syndrome and stand up for our skills. Jason On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 7:33 PM, Shirley Lincicum shirley.linci...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not in Chicago, and I didn't see this talk, so maybe I'm way off base, but isn't a coder a programmer, or even a software engineer? Last time I checked, programmer/software engineer is a clear, well-established and well-respected occupation (and generally far better paid than most Librarians, at least outside of the library world). Why can't library coders claim the title of programmer/software engineer? Truly curious, Shirley On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Maccabee Levine levi...@uwosh.edu wrote: Andromeda's talk this afternoon really struck a chord, as I shared with her afterwards, because I have the same issue from the other side of the fence. I'm among the 1/3 of the crowd today with a CS degree and and IT background (and no MLS). I've worked in libraries for years, but when I have a point to make about how technology can benefit instruction or reference or collection development, I generally preface it with I'm not a librarian, but I shouldn't have to be defensive about that. Problem is, 'coder' doesn't imply a particular degree -- just the experience from doing the task, and as Andromeda said, she and most C4Lers definitely are coders. But 'librarian' *does* imply MLS/MSLS/etc., and I respect that. What's a library word I can use in the same way as coder? Maccabee -- Maccabee Levine Head of Library Technology Services University of Wisconsin Oshkosh levi...@uwosh.edu 920-424-7332
[CODE4LIB] Avanti Nova 0.2
After a long hiatus I am back to working on the Avanti project again. I am developing the Nova semantic mapping system, which is essentially a scripting language and Java API interfacing a database used to store and manage generic linked data. I have just released version 0.2 which is complete rewrite of version 0.1. Version 0.1 tried to be too many things at a low level (and is actually more advanced than 0.2). 0.2 implements only the essential concepts of the Nova system. Although a small demo, 0.2 is the real starting point to what I hope to develop into a production software component used in a real application. Download and documentation is up on the project web site: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com This time I plan to really stick around awhile with this project, and I will share my progress with the code4lib community from time to time. Peter Schlumpf pschlu...@gmail.com Avanti Library Systems www.avantilibrarysystems.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] one tool and/or resource that you recommend to newbie coders in a library?
Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language. A keeper for life, and surprisingly readable and directed to the newbie. Also The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas. -Original Message- From: Bohyun Kim k...@fiu.edu Sent: Nov 1, 2012 3:24 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] one tool and/or resource that you recommend to newbie coders in a library? Hi all code4lib-bers, As coders and coding librarians, what is ONE tool and/or resource that you recommend to newbie coders in a library (and why)? I promise I will create and circulate the list and make it into a Code4Lib wiki page for collective wisdom. =) Thanks in advance! Bohyun --- Bohyun Kim, MA, MSLIS Digital Access Librarian bohyun@fiu.edu 305-348-1471 Medical Library, College of Medicine Florida International University http://medlib.fiu.edu http://medlib.fiu.edu/m (Mobile)
[CODE4LIB] Avanti Nova web interface
The Avanti Nova semantic mapping system finally has a web based interface. You can try out the demo on the web site: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com . It implements a simple catalog of a small collection of title records plus other resources from elsewhere. It is an example of a different approach to a library catalog. None of the implementation is hardcoded into Nova itself. This is a reference implementation. Not necessarily a production application, but one that can be extended into many different directions. The web part is a set of php modules that talk to the Nova server via its own application network protocol. Everything is clickable. Give it a try! And let me know what you think. A direct link to the application: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/nova/client/index.php?data=homecmd=1 Peter Schlumpf pschlu...@gmail.com http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Joann, A name change may not be necessary. For what it's worth, a long time ago in 2000 when I was getting my Avanti project off the ground, a group in Germany that I was unaware of developing an information retrieval database system called Avanti objected to the name I had chosen for my project because of the conflict. We eventually agreed to let me keep the Avanti name for my project with me placing a link to their work on my wesite explaining that these were different projects, which I did for some years. I no longer do so now, but there have been no objections, probably as I am pretty much on the fringes of anything right now. I am still shocked though, that LibLime would do something like this and actually persue it as a legal matter. As one who has been involved in and observed open source software in libraries from Day One, I am shaking my head here. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com Sent: Nov 22, 2011 3:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community Joann, This is horrible news, and you have my sympathy. It's very strange to think how recently we all thought of LibLime as being among the Good Guys. My position on this is that the name is probably not worth as much as it feels that it's worth. I can understand why as the originators you would have a strong emotional tie to it, but in the end a name-change may not hurt much at all (and might even help, judging by the frequency with which large organisations spend millions to change their names). Oracle owns the name OpenOffice, but no-one much cares and LibreOffice has replaced it in the world's affections. So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. JMHO. -- Mike. On 22 November 2011 00:51, Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Glad you came 'round, Mike. I would not suggest that they roll over and back down. A name is a very important thing. Try asking Coca-Cola to give up theirs. In reading this news I was angry enough to the point of writing an open letter to LibLime and this forum stating my views and asking LibLime for an explanation of why they are trying to take legal posession of the name Koha. I became especially after looking at their web site where I have so far found absolutely NO reference to HLT or where Koha came from. Nor to the open source software community in libraries from which it came. I decided not to send it. Yet. I don't want to cause problems, but I will if it's ok with the HLT folks. I have very strong feelings about this, because I have my own project, Avanti. I would feel very offended if a third party would hijack mine in this way and not give me any credit for what I have done. This is a big, big thing. I have also watched from the sidelines Koha develop into what it is, so I know where it comes from. I remember at ALA 2000 in Chicago when Tim O'Reilly graciously gave those of us with open source projects in libraries space in the O'Reilly booth to show off our work. There were only a few of us back then and Koha wasn't on the radar yet. LibLime is a Johnny-come-lately in this grizzled old person's mind. I am so disappointed in LibLime that they would sink to something like this. Peter Schlumpf http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com Sent: Nov 22, 2011 1:39 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community On 22 November 2011 19:32, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. Two things which may not be widely known here: 1. HLT was the original commissioner and I believe they have been using Koha continuously in delivering their library service since then. If they of all people are not allowed to share control of the name, then basically no FOSS project name is safe for its users. Ever. 2. Koha means akin to gift. The irony of trying to trademark that word in particular is mindboggling and should shame PTFS in the eyes of everyone who likes sharing information - basically all of us who are involved with libraries at some level, isn't it? Just for the record ... I find these arguments, and the similar ones that others have made, compelling. So I withdraw my earlier suggestion of shrugging and letting LibLime have the name. Sorry about that. -- Mike.
[CODE4LIB] Avanti Nova version 0.1 released
Avanti Nova version 0.1, a generalised semantic mapping system, has been released. It can be downloaded from the web site at: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com It includes the source code as well as a couple of small demo programs written in the Nova scripting language. It is very similar to the version that was demonstrated at the Code4lib Midwest Meeting at UIC last month. Development on Nova will (really!) continue and any feedback, positive or negative, is welcome and appreciated. Peter Schlumpf pschlu...@gmail.com http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Programmer Orientation to Library/Lib Sci
Laura, This is a great question, but a very difficult one for me to answer in a clear way. The no-brainers you list make sense to me. For me, libraries and programming developed almost inseperably. I saw the one as the context in which to do the other. I graduated from the University of Illinois with a computer science degree in 1989 and also took some graduate courses in library science. I worked in and around libraries for most of my working life, and much has changed in both fields since then. You might want to turn the question around and ask yourself what new ideas can this person bring into libraryland? My impression has been that libraryland is very insular and self-absorbed to the point that it courts the danger of making itself irrelevant to the rest of the world. For one, the fact that the MARC record format has persisted as it has to this day is mind-boggling. MARC is like a set of blinders that keep people looking library metadata in one particular way long after it has outlived its usefulness. The past few years I have spent in the corporate world doing completely different things, and now I am returning back to the library world with what have I learned out there. AS for an ah-ha moment, my experience in working in a small town library long ago and immersing myself in its every day cycle through its manual circulation system gave me an understanding of how that system works. And I used that as a context for my studies in computer science and work thereafter which turned into a positive cycle. For me, the one gives a reason to do the other. Peter Schlumpf -Original Message- From: Laura Smart laura.j.sm...@gmail.com Sent: Jul 20, 2011 11:04 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Programmer Orientation to Library/Lib Sci Hi folks - What do you include in orientation when you hire a programmer (excellent, experienced, of course), who isn't familiar with library-land? MARC is a given, ditto the ILS, plus e-resource management back end (OpenURL parsers, proxies and the like). From those of you who came into libraries for other industries: what do you wish you knew about libraries, library/info science, and library operations when you began? I'm especially interested in anything which gave you an ah-ha! moment when you were working with library data -- the implicit things which didn't make sense until you knew why those crazy librarians did things the way they did. Also - which resources were particularly valuable to you as you gained familiarity with your new environment? Your insight is deeply appreciated, Laura J. Smart Metadata Services Manager, Caltech Library la...@library.caltech.edu/laura.j.sm...@gmail.com
[CODE4LIB] Nova
Hello All, I once again come out of my cave with a progress report on Nova -- a semantic mapping system cast as an ILS. There are several main pieces to it. One is a domain specific programming language. A second is the API to the database used to store semantic maps. A third is the client/server system that implements it. The Nova language is sufficiently far along to post a specification. It's hardly perfect. http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com All of this is functional now in an alpha form. Here is an example of a Nova program that defines a very basic ILS. http://www/avantilibrarysystems.com/library.txt It gives an idea of how the language can be used and what it looks like. It works. There must be other ways to use Nova that am not aware of. I want to break down mind prisons. MARC is a mind prison. The idea of a relational database has also become a mind prison. So are a lot of other things if we let the tools we use define the way we do everything. There will be more stuff coming out of the Avanti project. Personally, I am at a point in my life where I don't care what I do. I answer to no one now in Libraryland, so I will do this. To Elliot Hallmark with your distributed library system: keep up what you are doing. It is good. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Let's go somewhere [was PHP vs. Python...]
-Original Message- From: Alexander Johannesen alexander.johanne...@gmail.com Sent: Nov 1, 2010 9:33 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Let's go somewhere [was PHP vs. Python...] ... So this is not a *dumb* idea, nor is it one of simply saying it's the API, stupid. It does goes deeper than that. Not that you / we should do it, but that's it a good exercise that should have happened. And, heck, might even have happened. Alex explains eloquently the problems and possibilities of a DSL for the library world, and semantic maps generally. This is also in answer to some of Patrick E.'s earlier questions about what I am trying to do. From the readme ( http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/README.txt ): Avanti Nova is a general-purpose semantic mapping system. Although first conceived for use as new kind of library catalog, it can be used in any situation to dynamically map the relationships in a set of objects. Some of its core ideas were first used in Avanti MicroLCS, and these were later generalised and extended in Nova. Nova is firstly a data structure with a scripting language interface to it. Programs are written in Nova to create and manage semantic maps. It also runs as a client-server system, and can be used from other environments like Unix shell scripts. And since it is written in Java, it naturally provides a Java API. The core idea in Nova is to represent a semantic map as a very large array. This allows for great flexibility in manipulating relationships in semantic maps. The README also has some actual examples of programs in the Nova language as it was a couple of months ago, and all of this stuff works right now, although there is a long way to go. Simple and crude perhaps, but that's how all things begin. I see much potential value in this thing even though much of it could be done with generic tools. I also believe that the generic tools (or anything for that matter) become their own mind-prisons if we rely too much on them. Soon we're speaking and thinking only in Ruby, Python, Perl, Django, Java, MARC or whatever with all their inherent metaphors and limitations. Pick up a hammer and everything starts looking like nails. It even goes into more general things: Everything is an API. We become like the blind men and the elephant. There are DSLs that serve other domains quite well. Mathematica and R are good examples. Why not a DSL that speaks the language of semantic maps directly? Semantic mapping can be a very large and rich domain. A DSL that seperates the problem from the API, as Alex points out, can handle many problems much more elegantly and flexibly than APIs or something that's tied to a specific tool's way of looking at things. Another line of thought that's a big innovation killer is: Something like this has been done before, so further work on the problem is not worthwhile. Carried to an extreme we'd all still be clunking around on wheels chiseled from stone slabs today because they've always been good enough. MARC is a very heavy stone wheel that has become a millstone around the neck of the library profession. My approach in doing this is to not worry or think too much about what has been done before. Start fresh with the basic concepts and what makes sense and try to make something useful out of it, from the ground up. Worrying about what's been done before leads to copying and a lot of original ideas may get rejected. If some wheels get reinvented, so what? Reinventing the wheel often leads to better wheels. Sometimes you have to build something first even if it doesn't solve a specific problem in order to see its value. I am no expert Nova programmer yet because I'm still building the thing. There's no community around this yet. It may be homegrown by a lone developer right now but that's the way many things start. And besides, as far as doing it goes, what the heck? Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com
[CODE4LIB] Let's go somewhere [was PHP vs. Python...]
Bill, you hit a nail pretty squarely on the head. I believe this decades long fetish with MARC has to go. It was designed to efficiently store data on magtapes and doesn't make any sense in today's world. It's a huge millstone around the neck of Libraryland and it keeps them stuck in that tiny little ghetto. Anything can be a mind-prison, even PHP, Python or Django. They are all arbitrary anyway. And you are correct in pointing out that the natural response of librarians to a problem is to seek consensus in a self-absorbed way. Form committees and all that nonsense which never goes anywhere. They are happy enough going around in circles, like the Nowhere Man making all his nowhere plans for nobody. My hope is that some among us would just undertake these problems ourselves. Outside of the realm of the libraries and the limiting mindsets many of us work in. We've all got ideas. Fire up vi and get busy and make something happen, like a library domain-specific language. Start fresh. There is nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is how the library community goes about such things. Let's go somewhere. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com Sent: Oct 29, 2010 8:18 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django] On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Peter Schlumpf pschlu...@earthlink.netwrote: What's wrong with the library world developing its own domain language? EVERYTHING!!! We're already in a world of pain because we have our own data formats and ways of dealing with them, all of which have basically stood idle while 30 years of advances computer science and information architecture have whizzed by us with a giant WHOOSHing sound. Having a bunch of non-experts design and implement a language that's destined from the outset to be stuck in a tiny little ghetto of the programming world is a guaranteed way to live with half- or un-supported code, no decent libraries, and yet another legacy of pain we'd have to support. I'm not picking on programming in particular. It's a dumb-ass move EVERY time a library is presented with a problem for which there are experts and decades of research literature, and it choses to ignore all of that and decide to throw a committee of librarians (or whomever else happens to be in the building at the time) at it based on the vague idea that librarians are just that much smarter (or cheaper) than everyone else (I'm looking at you, usability...) -Bill- -- Bill Dueber Library Systems Programmer University of Michigan Library
Re: [CODE4LIB] He's Pro-Django (humour)
Bravo!! Well done! I guess I'm not the only one whose mind instantly played that song in his head when first reading about Django. -Original Message- From: Doran, Michael D do...@uta.edu Sent: Oct 30, 2010 2:24 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] He's Pro-Django (humour) He's Pro-Django (sung to the tune of Mr. Bojangles and with abject apologies to Jerry Jeff Walker) I knew a man pro-Django and he proselytized For DRY; It's plugable, reusable, for rapid dev, Give it a try. He praised Python, he praised Python, Which it's written in. He's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, That's his stance! I met him in a thread on code4lib, I was So confused. He seemed to me to be a code guru And he was so enthused He talked of code, he talked of code, That's readable (unlike Perl). He said he was pro-Django, and he made his case Throughout the thread. He quoted stats, and better apps, and praised Python, It had appeal. He showed us graphs, he showed us graphs, Took on detractors. He's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, That's his stance! He talked to those with coding woes at conferences About the web. He spoke with tears of fifteen years maintaining Perl No commenting at all. Then a Perl web app died, just up and died, After two years he still seethes. He's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, That's his stance! He said I code Python at ev'ry chance at hack-a-thons and parse MARC blobs. But most the time I'm working on some Java apps 'Cause I need this job. He sent his post, and as he sent his post I saw someone reply He's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, he's pro-Django, That's his stance! -- Michael (A gray-beard Perl programmer who has resolved to start learning and using Python in 2011) # Michael Doran, Systems Librarian # University of Texas at Arlington # 817-272-5326 office # 817-688-1926 mobile # do...@uta.edu # http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django]
What's wrong with the library world developing its own domain language? From scratch. I mean not something like MARC that is just a static container for stuff, but a language that actually does something such as manipulating semantic maps or some such? It's not like things like PHP or Python or Django were handed down to us chiseled in stone tablets. All languages are arbitrary things anyway, and it doesn't matter how they are implemented. The point is to keep the layers of abstraction well defined. But otherwise, break down those walls. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Mark Tomko mark.to...@simmons.edu Sent: Oct 29, 2010 3:30 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django] Have people found Django fairly usable without using its ORM features? I'm not a big ORM fan, and it seems that so many Python frameworks sort of fall over if you try to get around the ORM. It's a bit of a shame, because I like Python. I wish Bottle and Flask were a little easier to work with. It feels a little weird having to configure WSGI for each application. I love their minimalist approach to templating, though. Mark On Oct 29, 2010, at 4:14 PM, Genny Engel wrote: I think the significant attributes of most programming languages are adequately summarized here: http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] on behalf of William Sexton [will.sex...@duke.edu] Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 7:24 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP vs. Python [was: Re: Django] I use Python and Django extensively, and think they're both great. That said, also great is the very funny keynote by former flickr engineer Cal Henderson at DjangoCon 2008, titled Why I Hate Django, which is on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Fr65PFqfk When he showed the slide I had to admit that the statement -.join(array) is kind of a goofy way to do that, though maybe not unforgivable. Whenever I use join() now I chuckle a little in my mind. It's good to step back and re-evaluate your favorite tools from time- to-time. If nothing else, the ability to analyze a platform for its suitability to a need is key. Will On Oct 28, 2010, at 9:38 AM, Thomas Bennett wrote: Having used Zope (python based) as our WEB server of choice since 1998 I am urged to express my opinion that if you do choose to use python in your projects then use a service designed for python use such as Zope, Django, et al. Zope is normally run in front of Apache as a virtual host. If you are going to use python then Zope is an excellent choice for interacting with databases and using python to massage/manipulate results if you need complex results from the database data. I like that you can write sql queries just like you might use on the command line and save it as an individual object for use by any number of other objects. What may be a simple example to some is a tutorial quiz I wrote for the WEB. There are categories and each category has any number of questions along with the answers in the database. In the management portion, the administrator can choose which categories are active and how many questions out of the total available to pull from each category individually. When the quiz page is generated the correct number of questions are pulled randomly from the total active questions for each category, some questions can be set as inactive. There are database connectors for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, odbc, and others so you can choose any popular db or write your own connector. And there are python libraries written for these databases which prove very useful. The main thing I like about python is that the syntax pretty much forces your code to be readable by others because indention is part of the syntax rather than semicolons, parens, etc. I don't know PHP in detail but am learning more quickly because the University is forcing all departments to move to Drupal and we will be running our site on Drupal within a year probably although some administrative tasks will still be running on our Zope server. Thomas ps: remember my point is that IF you choose to use python this supports its use with databases and scripting. On Wednesday 27 October 2010 20:49:06 you wrote: 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
Re: [CODE4LIB] simple,flexible ILS for a small library.
Here's what I have done some time ago toward a simple flexible ILS for a small library: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/microlcs.html Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: ... offonoffoffon...@gmail.com Sent: Sep 28, 2010 9:43 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] simple,flexible ILS for a small library. Perhaps you´ll find interesting this proposal. http://www.campi.uns.edu.ar/ Your view of the role of catalogs is shared here. too bad I dont speak spanish. I do intend to learn, but not in time to finish this project. Thanks
Re: [CODE4LIB] NoSQL - is this a real thing or a flash in the pan?
I'd opt for the first response. I hope NoSQL is not flash in the pan. It makes eminent sense to me. SQL is just one way of looking at data. A level of abstraction. What authority says that SQL is the only or the best way of looking at a dataset? Or the MARC record format for that matter? They certainly weren't inscribed on stone tablets. These things can become mind prisons. I think it's refreshing that there are those willing to look at databases beyond SQL. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Thomas Dowling tdowl...@ohiolink.edu Sent: Apr 12, 2010 10:55 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] NoSQL - is this a real thing or a flash in the pan? So let's say (hypothetically, of course) that a colleague tells you he's considering a NoSQL database like MongoDB or CouchDB, to store a couple tens of millions of documents, where a document is pretty much an article citation, abstract, and the location of full text (not the full text itself). Would your reaction be: That's a sensible, forward-looking approach. Lots of sites are putting lots of data into these databases and they'll only get better. This guy's on the bleeding edge. Personally, I'd hold off, but it could work. Schedule that 2012 re-migration to Oracle or Postgres now. Bwahahahah!!! Or something else? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoSQL is a good jumping-in point.) -- Thomas Dowling tdowl...@ohiolink.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] PHP bashing (was: newbie)
Programming languages as with many other things, are arbitrary. They aren't carved into stone tablets -- they're all made up. Some are better suited for certain problems than others. If you don't like any out there, go invent your own. To argue that one language is better than another is silly when at the end of the day, none of this stuff is real. Programming languages can turn into mind prisons. When you pick up a hammer evey problem starts looking like a nail. Same with the MARC record format. That has become one huge mind prison that the library community will probably never quite get itself out of. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Joe Hourcle onei...@grace.nascom.nasa.gov Sent: Mar 25, 2010 11:00 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] PHP bashing (was: newbie) On Thu, 25 Mar 2010, Brian Stamper wrote: On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:51:38 -0400, Mark Tomko mark.to...@simmons.edu wrote: I wouldn't recommend PHP to learn as a programming language, if your goal is to have a general purpose programming language at your disposal. PHP is a fine language for building dynamic web pages, but it won't help you to slice and dice a big text file or process a bunch of XML or do some other odd job that you don't want to do by hand. To be precise, PHP can indeed do these kind of things, particularly in command line mode. I certainly don't recommend it, but if you're used to PHP for other reasons, and you already have it available to you, you can do 'odd jobs' with PHP. You can also use your teeth to open a tight bottle cap, the edge of a knife as a screwdriver, and duct tape to perform auto repairs. You say that as if duct tape is a bad thing for auto repairs. Not all duct tape repairs are candidates for There, I fixed it![1]. It works just fine for the occassional hose repair. -Joe [1] http://thereifixedit.com/
[CODE4LIB] Avanti!
Many of you have not heard from me for a very long time. I find myself at the beginning of this new decade without a job. The last few years have been rough. The job market is terrible. So what to do? I think this is a blessing in disguise. I have all the time in the world to do something. As I look at around, I sometimes feel like a Rip van Winkle. So much has happened that I have not been a part of. Yet, I have been quite aware of it all from the very beginning. I've watched open source and free software happen and evolve in libraries. I am pleased. Koha exists. And Evergreen. They are very good alternatives to commercial offerings. But Avanti has not lived up to its name. Now it is time. After many years of neglect, I am getting back to work on Avanti, picking it up from where I left it. I will do so as long as I have a network connection and the lights stay on. I plan to keep whatever it turns out to be open source. So I ask you, the library community, what do you want in an opac? Would it be something different than what we have thought of as a opac? I want to redesign the opac from the ground up beginning with basic concepts. What would you tell someone who has nothing better to do with his time than to build such a thing? Come January 4th, I will go to work. Best wishes, and good health to all in the new decade. Peter Schlumpf http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Alert!
This is an interesting piece. I don't think I would go so far as to advocate all librarians become programmers anymore than to advocate that all chefs should become forgers of their own cutlery. Awareness though, of how these things are made, and the user of such tools having input into their design should be sufficient. Everything is an API, really. The handle of a knife is an interface just as much a programming language is to a computer. He makes good points about APIs, but it's a little too web-centric. Layers of abstraction may be a better term than API. Only now, after over 20 years of watching this thing grow up, am I becoming convinced that this Web stuff may be here to stay for awhile. Not because it's particularly good (it's pretty awful by design) but because the approach has gained so much momentum. APIs do really affect how we look at things. They are the containers into which we pour content. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Glen Newton glen.new...@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Sent: Dec 23, 2009 12:10 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Alert! Programming skills could transform librarians' roles Dude doesn't mention code4lib. Dude should do better research. Programming skills could transform librarians' roles To keep pace with information changes and the needs of users, librarians need some programming skills, argues David Stuart http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=245 -- Glen Newton | glen.new...@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Researcher, Information Science, CISTI Research NRC W3C Advisory Committee Representative http://tinyurl.com/yvchmu tel/t l: 613-990-9163 | facsimile/t l copieur 613-952-8246 Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) National Research Council Canada (NRC)| M-55, 1200 Montreal Road http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ Institut canadien de l'information scientifique et technique (ICIST) Conseil national de recherches Canada | M-55, 1200 chemin Montr al Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R6 Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada --
[CODE4LIB] Ten years
This might be a good time to reflect upon where we've been and where we're headed. Almost exactly ten years have passed, I think, since open source software in libraries became self-aware as a movement. Sure, there has always been open source software, but I would mark the real start as when the oss4lib listserv came into being. It provided a forum for like-minded folks to kick around ideas and discuss what they were doing. I remember ALA 2000 in Chicago. That was cool! Tim O'Reilly graciously gave us space at his booth there, letting us show off the early projects we were doing. And to any of you who happened to be at NERCOMP at Wesleyan University in Connecticut the following year -- I apologise. I am not an extemporaneous speaker, as I discovered! Then Koha happened. Then Evergreen, and a multitude of other projects. Overall, I am pleased by what has happened. Open source software for libraries has matured into a real option for any library. My little project fell by the wayside during that time, but it's always been there -- I just haven't done much with it. I am returning to it now with fresh ideas. What do the rest of you think about the past ten years? What about the next ten? Peter Schlumpf Avanti Library Systems http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com
[CODE4LIB] You got it!!!!! Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different
Bill, You have hit the nail on the head! This is EXACTLY what I am trying to do! It's the underlying stuff that I am trying to get at. Looking at RDF may yield some good ideas. But I am not thinking in terms of RDF or XML, triples, or MARC, standards, or any of that stuff that gets thrown around here. Even the Internet is not terribly necessary. I am thinking in terms of data structures, pointers, sparse matrices, relationships between objects and yes, set theory too -- things like that. The former is pretty much cruft that lies upon the latter, and it mostly just gets in the way. Noise, as you put it, Bill! A big problem here is that Libraryland has a bad habit of getting itself lost in the details and going off on all kinds of tangents. As I said before, the biggest prison is between the ears Throw out all that junk in there and just start over! When I begin programming this thing my only tools will be a programming language (C or Java) a text editor (vi) and my head. But before I really start that, right now I am writing a paper that explains how this stuff works at a very low level. It's mostly an effort to get my thoughts down clearly, but I will share a draft of it with y'all on here soon. Peter Schlumpf -Original Message- From: Bill Dueber b...@dueber.com Sent: Apr 9, 2009 10:37 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com wrote: I'm not sure what to make of this except to say that Yet Another XML Bibliographic Format is NOT the answer! I recognize that you're being flippant, and yet think there's an important nugget in here. When you say it that way, it makes it sound as if folks are debating the finer points of OAI-MARC vs MARC-XML -- that it's simply syntactic sugar (although I'm certainly one to argue for the importance of syntactic sugar) over the top of what we already have. What's actually being discussed, of course, is the underlying data model. E-R pairs primarily analyzed by set theory, triples forming directed graphs, whether or not links between data elements can themselves have attributes -- these are all possible characteristics of the fundamental underpinning of a data model to describe the data we're concerned with. The fact that they all have common XML representations is noise, and referencing the currently-most-common xml schema for these things is just convenient shorthand in a community that understands the exemplars. The fact that many in the library community don't understand that syntax is not the same as a data model is how we ended up with RDA. (Mike: I don't know your stuff, but I seriously doubt you're among that group. I'm talkin' in general, here.) Bibliographic data is astoundingly complex, and I believe wholeheartedly that modeling it sufficiently is a very, very hard task. But no matter the underlying model, we should still insist on starting with the basics that computer science folks have been using for decades now: uids (and, these days, guids) for the important attributes, separation of data and display, definition of sufficient data types and reuse of those types whenever possible, separation of identity and value, full normalization of data, zero ambiguity in the relationship diagram as a fundamental tenet, and a rigorous mathematical model to describe how it all fits together. This is hard stuff. But it's worth doing right. -- Bill Dueber Library Systems Programmer University of Michigan Library
Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different
An interesting thread! It will take me a while for me to digest the ideas. What I had in mind for something different is this: Think of a single database of only associations between objects, and nothing more than that. Objects defined in this database can reference any and all other objects in the database. These objects could represent anything: Title records or item records in an opac. A collection of files on a computer. Web sites. Links. Database queries. All of the above. Each object in this database contains just enough information to say that it exists and has a pointer to the thing in the outside world that it represents. Although the basic system would allow the objects in it to link to eachother in arbitrary ways, we could impose rules on it to create a system. An OPAC. A map. Other things that I can't think of right now. I think a key thought here is that it is a database of pure relationships that can be set up and manipulated. But the descriptive data is stored elsewhere. It allows for an interesting extension too -- weighting those associations. Suppose we use it to create a search structure, and each time we go from one object referencing another we increment a counter for that link by one. There are many ways to implement something like this, and I have one in mind, but this is sort of the theory behind it. It is going back to simple things. Peter Schlumpf -Original Message- From: Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net Sent: Apr 6, 2009 1:49 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different Cloutman, David wrote: I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a developer could work with without formal training, Well, speaking of 'without formal training' -- I posted this to the Open Library technology list, but using the OL, which is triple-based and open access, I was able to create a simple demo Pipe of how you could determine the earliest date of publication of a book (with an interest in looking at potential copyright status). Caveat is that the API I'm is still pretty stubby, so it only retrieves on exact title (this will be fixed sometime in the future). The pipe is here: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=216efa8c3b04764ca77ad181b1cc66e4 kc the basics of which could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice, of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I think in many common situations the really complex records are not what patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a standardization committee. Just my 2 cents. - David --- David Cloutman dclout...@co.marin.ca.us Electronic Services Librarian Marin County Free Library -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Schlumpf Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different Greetings! I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years. And libraries too. Some of you may know me. I am the Avanti guy. I am, perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in 1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I was there when all this stuff was coming together. Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen. There's Koha. There's Evergreen. They are good things. I have also seen first hand how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their crappy software. I believe free software is the answer to that. I have neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it. 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? Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears. I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do. I am getting busy. Peter Schlumpf Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc
[CODE4LIB] Something completely different
Greetings! I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years. And libraries too. Some of you may know me. I am the Avanti guy. I am, perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in 1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I was there when all this stuff was coming together. Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen. There's Koha. There's Evergreen. They are good things. I have also seen first hand how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their crappy software. I believe free software is the answer to that. I have neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it. 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? Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears. I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do. I am getting busy. Peter Schlumpf
Re: [CODE4LIB] Good advanced search screens
How about dispensing altogether with the basic/advanced dichotomy in a search interface? Just create a well designed interface that's consistent and works well for all users. The basic/advanced dichotomy is really quite arbitrary, and exists in the mind of the designer. One thing that seems to be underappreciated these days is a straightforward and flexible search syntax. A command line in the search field may be a much more elegant and consistent solution than trying to make all options available and visible in a GUI. Make the basic features of the search interface clear and easy to use, but design the interface in such a way that more advanced users can easily discover the features they need as they use it. With this approach Basic and Advanced exist on a continuum. There's a little learning curve but all users will have the motivation to learn to use the interface to the level that satisfies their needs, and in the long run probably find it much easier to use. Peter Peter Schlumpf [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Walker, David [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Nov 14, 2008 4:48 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Good advanced search screens I'm working on an advanced search screen as part of our WorldCat API project. WorldCat has dozens of indexes and a ton of limiters. So many, in fact, that it's rather daunting trying to design it all in a way that isn't just a big dump of fields and check boxes that only a cataloger could decipher. So I'm looking for examples of good advanced search screens (for bibliographic databases or otherwise) to gain some inspiration. Thanks! --Dave == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu
[CODE4LIB] Avanti MicroLCS version 1.0.1 released
Avanti MircoLCS version 1.0.1 is now available. MicroLCS is an OPAC and cataloging system written in Java. Version 1.0.1 includes a complete User Guide and a simplified install procedure for Windows, among other tweaks and improvements, MicroLCS can be downloaded from the project website at http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com . Peter Schlumpf Avanti Project Manager
Re: [CODE4LIB] next generation opac mailing list
I think this makes perfect sense. We need this forum. The catalog is going to be with us in one form or another. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how the library field is sooo quick to throw overboard useful tools just for the sake of something different. The ILS in its present form has LOTS of room for improvement but it doesn't mean we have to hide it behind other labels or have to turn it into some nebulous concept that doesn't mean anything. Why do librarians instinctively run away from their purpose? I've worked all over the place in the library world and I work in a public library now. Here on Mount Olympus we spend so much time arguing pendantically about MARC-this and Z39.50-that, and fretting and worrying about what OCLC is up to. All the while our patrons are coming up to the OPAC search stations and using the all too limiting user interface we present them to type in the one or two keywords that they know in order to find something in the library. Do they care about all what we talk about? No!!! They just want to find their book or resource in whatever form it is in, get it, and go on with their lives. The catalog is one of the the main interfaces to the library that all patrons use. How can we make that experience most productive? We need to pay lot of attention to that. Peter Schlumpf -Original Message- From: Michael Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 5, 2006 9:04 PM To: CODE4LIB@listserv.nd.edu Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] next generation opac mailing list I have been reading the comments here and I am in favor of creating a list for discussing the next generation catalog/information system/whatever. I have been to 2 workshops in the last month where I have heard 2 people from different universities talk about OCLC being *THE* interface to the library catalog in the future -- truly a WorldCat. I consider myself open to new ideas but this one really worries me. And when you look at OCLCs long range plans, they want to become *THE* library interface. We need something. My ILS has decided that their next generation catalog will be a portal with its own database, etc. I already have one database with MARC data why do I need another to hold the non-MARC data. Why isn't my ILS working to expand/create the next generation MARC record? I think the next generation catalog goes hand and hand with the next generation of MARC. -- Michael Bowden Harrisburg Area Community College [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6/5/2006 8:17:07 PM On Jun 5, 2006, at 7:33 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote: What's wrong with keeping such discussions to this very list? It's very on-topic, and I'm not sure I need yet another list (I think I'm up to around 30-something now!). I understand this sentiment. Really! On the other hand we are a bunch o' hackers, and there is more to this thing (whatever it is called) than code. We need the perspective of catalogers, reference types, administrators, vendors, etc. Thus, the idea for creating a new list. -- Eric Lease Morgan University Libraries of Notre Dame I'm hiring a Senior Programmer Analyst. See http://dewey.library.nd.edu/morgan/programmer/.
