Apps Messaging Manifesto

[Mark Taylor]

On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, John Taylor wrote:

> 1) A simple solution which does the right thing nearly all the time is better 
> than a complicated one which does the right thing all the time.
>
> 2) The design of the messaging system (and messages) should place a low 
> burden on authors who wish to make their applications compliant.
>
> 3) We don't have all the answers up front, and our goal should be to get 
> software out into the community quickly so that we can get feedback to refine 
> our ideas.
>
>
> ============================================
>
>
> With regard to 3), I'd be interested in hearing from people which 
> applications they intend to modify to use the messaging protocol.  Authors 
> who are actively working on software that tracks the standard are the ones 
> who will be best placed to discover flaws and improvements to it and effect 
> changes.   As for myself, I intend to provide a Java module for the Workbench 
> that will serve as a Hub, and a Java library to make life easier for clients. 
> In particular, I intend to maintain an applet that allows data centres to 
> create messaging-enabled web pages.  If time allows I will also provide a 
> Python client.

I will hope to keep TOPCAT and SPLAT on top of developments, 
and STILTS if appropriate.  I'd like to do the same with GAIA,
but Tcl is much harder work (at least for me) than Java, so 
whether this is feasible depends a bit on how complicated, and
how different from PLASTIC, anything we agree on turns out to be.

anyone else?

Mark

-- 
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/