-<!-- $Id: introduction.xml,v 1.5 2001-10-24 20:12:36 adam Exp $ -->
+<!-- $Id: introduction.xml,v 1.7 2001-10-26 20:13:44 adam Exp $ -->
<chapter id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
<para>
It is, by far, the easiest way to develop clients in C.
Server implementers should consider the
<link linkend="server">generic frontend server</link>.
- None of those high-level API's support the whole protocol, but
- they support most facilities used in existing Z39.50
+ None of those high-level APIs support the whole protocol, but
+ they do include most facilities used in existing Z39.50
applications.
</para>
<para>
- If you're developing non-standard extensions to Z39.50 or you're
+ If you're using 'exotic' functionality (meaning anything not included in
+ the high-level APIs), developing non-standard extensions to Z39.50 or you're
going to develop an ILL application you'll have to learn the lower
- level API's of &yaz;.
+ level APIs of &yaz;.
</para>
<para>
- The basic low level modules, which is independent of the role,
- consists of three primary interfaces:
+ The basic low level modules, which are independent of the role
+ (client or server), consist of three primary interfaces:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>&asn;, which provides a C representation of the Z39.50
provided by the &odr; (Open Data Representation) subsystem.
</para>
<para>
- &odr; is a basic mechanism for representing an
+ &odr; is a basic mechanism for representing an
ASN.1 type in the C programming language, and for implementing BER
encoders and decoders for values of that type. The types defined in
the &asn; module generally have the prefix <literal>Z_</literal>, and
sgml-indent-step:1
sgml-indent-data:t
sgml-parent-document:"yaz.xml"
- sgml-local-catalogs: "../../docbook/docbook.cat"
+ sgml-local-catalogs: nil
sgml-namecase-general:t
End:
-->