SAMP draft document introduction

[Mark Taylor]

Dear apps-samp readers,

over the last few weeks, the SAMP authors (Thomas Boch, Mike Fitzpatrick
and Mark Taylor, working on an initial outline from John Taylor and with
additional input from Doug Tody, with guidance from Mark Allen) 
have put together a draft of the standard document for the proposed 
Simple Applications Messaging Protocol.  This has involved considerable 
effort and constructive debate from all parties.  Although what we 
currently have still requires some significant extra work, and does 
not represent complete agreement among the authors, we are posting 
it for public debate at this stage in view of the proximity to the 
upcoming IVOA Interop meeting (19-23 May).  Our hope is that people 
can familiarise themselves with the text and provide opinions on 
particular points on the list over the next couple of weeks, so that 
we can take advantage of the SAMP sessions of the Apps group in Trieste
to reach conclusions on things which still look to be contentious 
at that stage.  I apologise that the time scale for this is rather 
short; we had intended to begin the public debate somewhat earlier 
than this, but you know how these things go...

Accompanying this message, I am posting the following items:

   1. A draft of the current version of the SAMP standard in LaTeX
      and PDF form.

   2. A summary of TODO items - these are things which the authors know
      require more work.  They haven't received enough attention yet,
      but we know they need it before we can consider this as a
      Working Draft.

   3. A number of ISSUE items.  These are things which have come up
      as areas where the authors disagree or acknowledge that the
      answer is not clear.  These are posted as separate messages to
      encourage followups which tackle a single point rather than
      cover a wide range of topics.  The hope is that this will
      make it easier to keep track of, and reach consensus on,
      opinions on particular questions.

We would ask readers of this list, and particularly those who anticipate
using, or wanting to use, the resulting standard, to read the document 
and provide comments on it, including:

  - "this looks like a standard I can/would like to use for [application]"

  - "this looks unworkable for [application] because ..."

  - posting follow up messages giving opinions, and if appropriate reasons,
    on specific ISSUE items.

  - starting new ISSUE items for particular questions not addressed in the
    public debate so far.  For items which are expected to be contentious,
    please consider starting a new ISSUE thread for each one rather than
    posting a single message covering a diverse list of items, to make the
    debates easier to follow.

and anything else you feel appropriate.

Mark Taylor (for the authors)

-- 
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/