Apps Messaging - Semantics of a Message

[John Taylor]

Conversely, if strive for perfection we'll never get beyond the  
talking stage.  This is a common problem in the IVOA in my humble  
opinion: too much talking and not enough doing.  If we are going to  
try to build the protocol-that-lasts-a-thousand-years (and I actually  
don't think we need to) then we'll need to get something simple  
agreed in the meantime to act as a stop gap.



On 9 Apr 2007, at 15:36, Doug Tody wrote:

> Hi Alasdair -
>
> I think this is what we are all talking about.  All of the use-cases
> for messaging we have in mind involve actual astronomy software,
> and are based on real experience with actual astronomy software that
> uses messaging.  The actual experience with messaging in astronomy
> applications goes back far before PLASTIC came along.
>
> I think we would all like to end up with something which is relatively
> simple to use for "simple" inter-tool/app messaging.  However if this
> is to be a useful astronomy standard which lasts a while, it should be
> based on a carefully thought out design and underlying messaging  
> model.
> The simplication occurs mostly in the specification of the protocol  
> and
> message content model used for the more limited class of applications
> we have in mind initially.
>
> If too many short cuts are taken, we will indeed end up with "yet  
> another"
> astronomy messaging implementation.
>
> 	- Doug
>
>
> On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>
>>
>> Mike Fitzpatrick wrote:
>>> I disagree, what possible use is "here's a table" as a message
>>> other than to generate a "so what" reply?  A response to a  
>>> get.datatype
>>> message might encode the answer this way but the mtype of the  
>>> reply will
>>> still be status.reply.
>>
>> Just to make the point, we are not here to build yet another  
>> general purpose messaging bus for generic applications. We can  
>> take short cuts and make assumptions because what we're here to  
>> build is a specific type of messaging system designed to send  
>> astronomy specific data to astronomy specific applications,  
>> possibly all confined to a single desktop machine.
>>
>> Al.
>