Versioning - was Re: Request for applications defined within CeaCapability

[Paul Harrison]

On 2007-10 -14, at 12:40, Guy Rixon wrote:

>>
>> So if each bundle is registered with the application description
>> encased within the CEACapability of the service, each STILS service/
>> Application when deployed will end up with a different IVOA ID, and
>> how is the client to know that each of these services is in fact the
>> same application? This sort of bundling would be best achieved by the
>> implementer of the application registering the CEAApplication himself
>> once, and then each deployer of the bundle simply registering the
>> service with a <ManagedApplications> reference in he CEACapability -
>> i.e. the current practice.
>
> Quite. And that's what we've agreed to do with STILTS: Mark will  
> register each
> new version as he produces it.

Mmm, versioning is something else - If I look at the current registry  
entries for stilts, I see 3 entries

ivo://starlink.ac.uk/stilts1.3
ivo://starlink.ac.uk/stilts
ivo://astrogrid.cam/stilts1.3.4

 From the end user perspective this is confusing - firstly with the  
current UI tools they will be presented with 3 options, secondly most  
of the time they just want to run the latest version, and not want to  
have to change the name that they use if they have already created a  
script against it. - Following this reasoning the best name here is  
ivo://starlink.ac.uk/stilts. I know that there are server-side  
reasons to have to old versions still registered in some fashion, but  
I think that this means adopting a strategy of updating the "plain  
named" registration each time there is a new version, and creating a  
"version named" entry for the previous version to archive it. This is  
not an easy topic to find a neat solution for, but I think that the  
overriding priority should be to make it appear seamless to the end  
user.

Cheers,
	Paul.


Dr. Paul Harrison
JBCA, Manchester University
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/jodrellbank