TAP Notes

[Markus Demleitner]

Dear DAL list,

as many of you may remember, I've solicited input and contributions to
what I called "TAP Implementation Notes" since about the Pune Interop.
I've let the thing rot a bit as people's eyes were elsewhere.

Now, however, I'm hearing more and more murmuring about possible
enhancements of the TAP stack (e.g., ADQL+, which is mentioned for the
publication GAIA results, and we might want some extensions for some
more powerful queries to RegTAP; also, examples is now in DALI, so
it's high time we say how it's going to look like for TAP).  So, I
believe it's time now to go ahead and publish a first version of the
note.

I'm fairly serious about the "first" in "first version" here -- if
things work out the way I hope they are, the note should go through
fairly many revisions in the next few years, collecting text that
will later end up in the appropriate standards, and I'd like to
cordially invite *you* (yes, you there with your fingers on the
keyboard) to contribute.

Even for this version, I'd be happy to have more of the contributors in
the author list -- Mark, Paul, Pierre, Tom: Could I list you as authors
or did I mis-represent your contributions too grossly?

Also, if you have something in your drawer (the CDS debug endpoint
comes to mind...), please feel free to contribute as well.  I'll hold
off with sending out the note for another week or so.

Meanwhile, my dream has been to make the published snapshots of the
note represent the "rough consensus" part of the "rough consensus and
running code" mantra of successful standards writing, which means: if
you absolutely detest something that's in there now, please do
protest.

On the other hand, if you've looked at the document in 2012 and liked
what you saw, don't bother re-reading, the difference between then
and now is just redaction.

So, without further ado, here's what will become the note 1.0 unless
you stop me:

http://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/TAPImplementationNotes

There's also a wiki page for this if you prefer: 

http://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/TAPImplementationNotes

Cheers,

        Markus