Alexander Johannesen schrieb:> Hi,
>
> Ok, several people seem to think that it's fair to compare MARC21 with
> XML as a delivery format for meta data, so I think it's time to
> explain just exactly what we're missing out on by clinging on to the
> MARC dinosaur. But first; MARC is a great piece of engineering and
> thinking. It's a format that's survived for almost 30 years, and still
> can handle a great deal of stuff. But it also fails miserably where we
> now need it the most, such as modeling and data validation.
>
> First, let's tackle that whole English element name thing. It's
> rubbish. The most important point here is that these tokens are *only*
> a human problem, not a technical one.
Yes. And in this regard, you keep forgetting that humans need to
communicate, and increasingly across borders. The MARC numbering
scheme provides a neutral and very efficient shorthand for this purpose.
It has become the very language in which catalogers talk about their
stuff. This must not be taken away and replaced by verbal labels, and
different ones in every language.
But you go on to say,
>...
> I think you're forgetting that a) most IT fundamentals are in English,
> even programming languages (so why mix up idioms of programming,
> artificially separating semantics, logic and work flow through
> language?),
This is not the kind of language needed in the day-to-day business
of cataloging
> and b) experts coming together *need* to speak the same
> language (so at least we need to choose *one*).
>
exactly. There you are.
And again: it's been said repeatedly in this forum that we are
barking up the wrong tree in bashing MARC or XML. So let's just
stop this pointless discussion.
B.Eversberg
Received on Tue Aug 28 2007 - 02:49:59 EDT