Datalink - a naive question...

[Markus Demleitner]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 09:47:43AM +0000, Paul Harrison wrote:
> I have a naive question - why is DataLink defined as a service
> rather than simply a specialised VOTable pattern with an associated
> mime type?
> 
> It seems to me that documentation could be greatly simplified if
> this approach were taken - no DALI, VOSI etc. in the Datalink
> document.

+ no REQUEST to uglify URLs that, after all, can quite frequently
turn up in tables and possibly even rendered.

And: If datalink is a capability on a, say, DAL service, the
semantics of VOSI isn't quite clear right now, anyway, since both the
DAL service and Datalink would need then.

If we said "Datalink is a capability typically associated with
another service", things were a bit easier (though still not trivial,
e.g., as regards tables).

So, from me, a +1.

Cheers,

         Markus