I've read about Blacklight's ability to run on any Solr index, but I've
struggled to make it work with mine.  Honestly, I've been left with the
impression that my data should be in MARC if I want to use it.  Is there
some documentation on this somewhere that I've overlooked?  (Maybe I should
ask this on the BL list....)


On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Naomi Dushay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Marijane,
>
> It also makes sense to examine the available software for what you wish to
> accomplish.  Available software goes beyond current features to
> - maintainability  (one reason Stanford switched to Blacklight)   I'll talk
> a little bit about this in our Code4Lib 2010 presentation about testing.
> - community
> - active development
> - potential applicability to additional projects.   (we like Blacklight for
> its ability to run on any solr index, regardless of what's in there)
>
> probably some other stuff I've left out.
>
> Our experience at Stanford Libraries is that the common conventions of
> Rails give us a lot more ease in reading each others' code.
>
> - Naomi
>
>
> On Jan 5, 2010, at 3:04 PM, marijane white wrote:
>
>  Greetings Code4Lib,
>>
>> Long time lurker, first time poster here.
>>
>> I've been turning over this question in my mind for a few weeks now, and
>> Joe
>> Hourcle's postscript in the Online PHP Course thread has prompted me to
>> finally try to ask it. =)
>>
>> I'm interested in hearing how the members of this list have gone about
>> choosing development platforms for their library coding projects and/or
>> existing open source projects (ie like VuFind vs Blacklight).  For
>> example,
>> did you choose a language you already were familiar with?  One you wanted
>> to
>> learn more about?  Does your workplace have a standard enterprise
>> architecture/platform that you are required to use?  If you have chosen to
>> implement an existing open source project, did you choose based on the
>> development platform or project maturity and features or something else?
>>
>> Some background -- thanks to my undergraduate computer engineering
>> studies,
>> I have a pretty solid understanding of programming fundamentals, but most
>> of
>> my pre-LIS work experience was in software testing and did not require me
>> to
>> employ much of what I learned programming-wise, so I've mostly dabbled
>> over
>> the last decade or so.  I've got a bit of experience with a bunch of
>> languages and I'm not married to any of them.   I also kind of like having
>> excuses to learn new ones.
>>
>> My situation is this: I would like to eventually implement a discovery
>> tool
>> at MPOW, but I am having a hell of a time choosing one.  I'm a solo
>> librarian on a content team at a software and information services
>> company,
>> so I'm not really tied to the platforms used by the software engineering
>> teams here.  I know a bit of Ruby, so I've played with Blacklight some,
>> got
>> it to install on Windows and managed to import a really rough Solr index.
>> I'm more attracted to the features in VuFind, but I don't know much PHP
>> yet
>> and I haven't gotten it installed successfully yet.  My collection's
>> metadata is not in an ILS (yet) and not in MARC, so I've also considered
>> trying out more generic approaches like ajax-solr (though I don't know a
>> lot
>> of javascript yet, either).  I've also given a cursory look at SOPAC and
>> Scriblio.  My options are wide open, and I'm having a rough time deciding
>> what direction to go in.  I guess it's kind of similar to someone who is
>> new
>> to programming and attempting to choose their first language to learn.
>>
>> I will attempt to head off a programming language religious war =) by
>> stating that I'm not really interested in the virtues of one platform over
>> another, moreso the abstract reasons one might have for selecting one.
>> Have any of you ever been in a similar situation?  How'd you get yourself
>> unstuck?  If you haven't, what do you think you might do in a situation
>> like
>> mine?
>>
>>
>> -marijane
>>
>