User:Tom/Z39.50 Python Hacking

From GetSemantic

A large number of libraries currently implement the Z39.50 protocol which is (a purely personal experience) a bloody nightmare, which returns insanely complex strings of crud. We could do so much better.

I've been experimenting a bit recently with Z39.50 using PyZ3950 which is an implementation in Python of Z39.50. You can see some of the other things I've found about Z39.50 on delicious.

I wish that Z39.50 would get replaced with a combination of REST (supporting HTML+microformats, standard XML formats and RDF) and maybe SPARQL too. Z39.50 is a pig of a protocol, and it's continued existence is actually preventing innovation in data reuse.

Although there is a standard method for requesting data through Z39.50, there doesn't seem to be a standard way of parsing the response. The response may be plain text, XML or some other variation of Babel.