TAP/QL Draft published

[Nicholas A Walton]

Dear Doug,

just reading through the email trail here - keith was not commenting on 
your 'scope' - he was actually pointing out that you are presenting not 
a TAP v0.2 draft - BUT a TAP/Param v0.2 draft.

thus the page at 
http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/TableAccess has it right:

'TAP/Param

TAP/Param V0.2 - TAP/Param draft (includes TAP/Param functionality). 
This is based upon the discussions from the tiger team meeting held at 
JHU last November (JHU November 2007), as well as follow-on discussions 
regarding VOSpace integration, multi-region queries, and other topics.  

TAP/QL

TAP/QL V0.1 - TAP/QL Draft document focused on processing ADQL queries, 
synchronous and asynchronous execution, integration with other IVOA 
services and metadata provision using VOSI constructs.'

Also - Keith mentions 'your' version - purely for convenience - the file 
you uploaded has no author list - also the title needs to be Table 
Access Protocol/Param for clarity.

Yours, Nic



Doug Tody wrote:
> Hi Keith -
>
> On Thu, 15 May 2008, Keith Noddle wrote:
>   
>> I would like to thank Doug for uploading his version to the same page. I
>> need to make one small correction to his email: the specification he
>> references is the TAP/Param Draft even though it goes some way beyond
>> merely specifying parametrised querying (see below).
>>     
>
> Well I am surprised to hear you characterize the scope of "TAP/Param"
> this way!  After all we checked with you a month ago before beginning work
> on the draft spec, to clarify the scope of TAP/Param (see mail below).
> We agreed that TAP/QL and TAP/Param would likely have similar scope,
> differing mainly in emphasis (all ADQL in one case vs both ADQL and
> Param query methods in the other).
>
> If we had not agreed upon this key point then I am not sure what we would
> have done, but we could never have agreed to merely focus on a non-ADQL,
> purely parameter based interface.  ADQL, VOSpace/async integration,
> multi-region queries etc.  are an essential requirement for NVO as well
> (and we have been doing this here for 10-20 years or so); it is just that
> our requirements are evidently broader than those of some other folks.
> But we could never proceed with prototyping of "TAP/Param" this summer
> if all it did was ParamQuery.  We need one TAP which encompasses all
> primary requirements in one interface, and this is what is proposed.
>
>   
>> I would like to thank Doug for uploading his version to the same page.
>>     
>
> Just to clarify, this is not "my" version.  While I did most of the
> writing of this in the short several weeks available, it is mainly just
> an elaboration of the agreements we reached in the international TAP
> tiger team meeting last November.  Plus we have had numerous sessions
> on this within the NVO over the past 6 months at least, and had what
> additional discussion there was time for in the several weeks since the
> IVOA teams were formed.
>
> It might be worth reviewing the minutes of the TAP tiger team meeting
> again, as so far as I know this represents the best attempt thus
> far to try to get everone on the "same table" (no pun intended), and
> agree upon the key issues and requirements for TAP.  Agreed everyone
> could not be there of course, and broader discussion is needed,
> but given that we all flew in from around the world and spent two
> days discussing all this in detail, making considerable progress
> discussing details such as sync/async, metadata queries, vospace
> integration, etc., it is a shame to not make more of an effort to
> at least take these agreements as a starting point.  (Again, see
> http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/TapJhu).
>
> 	- Doug
>
>
> ----
> Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:59:00 +0100
> From: Keith Noddle <ktn at star.le.ac.uk>
> To: Doug Tody <dtody at nrao.edu>
> Cc: Robert Hanisch <hanisch at stsci.edu>
> Subject: Re: TAP
>
> [...]
>
>   
>> [From Doug:]
>> Yes, I will be happy to lead the "TAP/Param" effort.  The scope of what
>> we are doing however, is what we discussed in the November tiger team
>> meeting, including both AdqlQuery and ParamQuery operations within
>> the same interface, as this is the only approach which meets all
>> our requirements.  Initial prototyping will focus more on ParamQuery
>> though.  We are still working on this, but should have at least an
>> initial spec and some prototyping to discuss at the interop.
>>     
>
> Excellent, that is good news. I'm hoping the same will be true for TAP/QL
> with the emphasis on ADQL. If so, we will have things of substance
> to discuss - and maybe the edges will blur between TAPs Param and QL
> after all...
>   

-- 
========================================================================
Dr N. A. Walton
(AstroGrid Project Scientist	       http://www.astrogrid.org)
(Euro-VO VOTC Project Scientist	       http://www.euro-vo.org)
Institute of Astronomy          Tel:   +44 1223 337503
University of Cambridge         Fax:   +44 1223 337523
Madingley Road                  WWW:   http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~naw
Cambridge, CB3 0HA              email: naw at ast.cam.ac.uk
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