SODA gripes (3): Explanatory introduction

[Mark Taylor]

Markus,

On Wed, 27 Jan 2016, Markus Demleitner wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> In his mail
> http://mail.ivoa.net/pipermail/dal/2016-January/007235.html Mark
> wrote:
> 
> > Finally (at least for now), it's not obvious to me from this document
> > how to actually use a SODA service.  Possibly that's because I'm
> > not familiar enough with Datalink or other associated standards,
> 
> -- and from other discussions it seems to me that that's a fairly
> common sentiment.
> 
> I hance think that we should have an explanatory introduction as to
> how SODA is intended to work, and what clients and servers have to do
> to implement it.  I've drafted such an explanatory introduction in a
> branch of the SODA document at
> https://volute.g-vo.org/svn/branches/SODA-markus[1].
> 
> The new, explanatory chapter is 1.4, with three subsections (diffs
> below).  If you don't want to build the document yourself, I've
> uploaded a PDF to http://docs.g-vo.org/SODA-expl.pdf
> 
> Opinions?  Problems with the general drift or individual questions
> addressed?  Does this even help understanding SODA?  What changes
> would people want before they'd consider this ready for merging into
> trunk?

thanks, that looks like a big help.  I still wouldn't say I totally
understand how SODA fits together, and probably won't unless I actually
implement something using it, but at least it looks clear from this
how to go about implementing or understanding it, and deciding
when you'd want to.

So, assuming the document authors are in agreement about the content,
I support adding this section to the document.

Mark

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-9288776  http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/