Andrews, Mark J. wrote:
> (Shrugging my shoulders), 99% of science consists of useless dead ends. At least the folks at Lane tried something new.
> How many members of this list have done as much?
>
Oh I'm sure many have tried many things that ended up among the 99%.
Biggest trouble with this is that failures seldom get documented and
reported so others could learn from the experience. They just get
swept under the rug and that's it.
For instance, I'm pretty sure that many many professors have
hired a student and told them to rig up some database for the
library. They made a brave attempt, using all the wrong tools
and approaches (SQL and such). but it didn't really get beyond
beta, to be eventually buried - with nobody the wiser. Over and over.
Probably the most frequent case in the unwritten chapter on failures
in the history of common computing.
For myself, I can claim to have tried something that not ended up in the
99%. The product is in heavy use in hundreds of libraries here. And
being a success, it is also documented - but with this, the trouble is
who regards without suspicion anything that is not mainstream (not SQL,
XML, RDF... though MARC is possible but not mandatory) and comes without
a hefty price tag ;-)
B. Eversberg
Received on Wed May 23 2007 - 06:29:22 EDT