[Koha] MARC importing tool?

[Christopher Hicks]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Wolfgang Pichler wrote:
> Christopher Hicks wrote:
> >On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Wolfgang Pichler wrote:
> did you hear me voting for ref.integrity ? nope. so where is your problem ?

Given what you said it was a challenge to determine what you meant.  You 
certainly sounded like a formality and referential integrity wonk.  If 
that's not you, great, but maybe you should consider that I'm not the only 
person who seems to have "gotten the wrong idea" about where you were 
coming from.

> i have teh problem if i want to do something with koha and lacking docs.

I sympathise, but at this point it's a dig in and ask questions sort of 
thing.  Demanding docs to folks trying to push a release out the door is 
not going to get you many answers.

> IF migrating to koha, which seems to be supported, i hope, I HAVE to 
> populate the db CORRECTLY.

Support and good docs are two very seperate things.  Also consider that
others haven't needed what you're looking for to populate the DB, but I'm
sure that was all hashed out much earlier in this thread.

> IF you can explain me how to do this without actually being able to
> understand koha most completely, because i have to jump deeply into the
> code, PLEASE do so.

Doing enough with the front end to see how the database looks afterward
and then asking questions that come up through that process doesn't seem
to be arduous process for someone with your technical skills.

> IF i have a chance to achieve a consistent data content in koha without
> keying in every biblio, item, borrower, category, etc.etc. in front of
> the gui from scratch, PLEASE explain. (nota bene: NOT just breeding
> infos imported from marc-records)

I wish I knew.  I've played with Koha a little bit, and hung around 
answering the questions I can, but you're trying to go deeper than I ever 
found the need to go.  Someday I hope to go there and I'll be happy to 
share whatever docs I come up through that process, but honestly there's a 
lot of other development work in front of me getting back to Koha.

> i assume the web-space could already be populated to some degree by the
> people who know what they are doing.

It could be, but there isn't much of what you're looking for since most 
users don't care and most developers either figure it out themselves or 
don't care either.

> i think you also do NOT feel good to read megs of code for weeks until
> you get some idea, what is going on behind the scenes ...

If you've got to read every line of code to get an idea of what's going on 
I'm sorry.  Install it.  Play with it.  Browse the database.  How much 
code did I read in the process?  Zilch.  How much would I need to read to 
figure out the stuff you're talking about?  A few hours worth.  Nobody's 
asking you to run a marathon here, but whining when somebody says the milk 
isn't in the fridge, here's two bucks, walk to the store down the block 
and get it isn't going to get you very far.

> i appreciate your advocacy, but you are constructing offence, where none is.

I'm honestly not the only person who took you as coming from that 
perspective.  Please pardon any inappropriate grumpiness.  It's a BOFH 
thing.  :)

> every developer including me dislikes documentation, but this gun shoots
> backwards. using koha means understanding koha for people who must
> operate it beyond the gui. this is a hard fact, like it or not.

Noone disagrees that what you're looking for would be a good thing, but
until somebody volunteers to do it and actually does it won't happen.  
Another hard fact.  Since you seem to be quite disturbed by this state of
affairs hoepfully you will be that volunteer.

-- 
</chris>

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It
will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)