[TAP] sync vs async

[Roy Williams]

Thank you Doug, for this insightful and constructive message.

I for one believe in the open systems approach that you describe, the 
idea of a toolkit of services that can be chained together, the idea of 
building our system gradually and with flexibility.

As for the other way, well, twice in my past life I have been involved 
with a 'big system' that has failed. Each time it was that same reasons: 
failure to involve customers, inadequate use cases, too much system for 
them to learn, emphasizing capability over robustness, and such a late 
delivery that customers had already built alternative ways to get their 
work done.

As Doug points out, our customers have an alternative to the VO: we are 
like Travelocity/Expedia, an integrator of data sources, we are not a 
telescope, which original data. So we need to be attractive to 
customers. Starting now.

Roy

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California Institute of Technology
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