Definitive version of the VOTable schema for web services

[Anita M. S. Richards]

Even as an astronomer who does "turn up to IVOA meetings", Mark is 
still right, I don't even want a VOTable per se, I just want my data in a 
form where the first time I see it, will be a plot in TopCat or Aladin, or 
an ascii table written out from a conversion tool,.  Or, if it is e.g. a 
SIAP VOTable, a tree of images in Aladin. VOTable happens to be the 
handiest way to move this, and as a data provider, I can figure out how to 
write VOTables, just about.

If I want a very large amount of data I might be prepared to substitute a 
few variables in an example script but any more than that and it takes too 
much time.  Most astronomers haven't a clue what SOAP, WDSL or even code 
bindings are, other than some magic.

cheers
a

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Dr. A.M.S. Richards, AstroGrid Astronomer,
Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Alan Turing Building, 
University of Manchester, M13 9PL
+44 (0)161 275 4124
and
MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, Jodrell Bank Observatory, 
Cheshire SK11 9DL, U.K. +44 (0)1477 571321 (tel) 571618 (fax)


On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Mark Taylor wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Ray Plante wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Matthew Graham wrote:
>>> The code-binding approach, however, is supposed to be easier for end users 
>>> (astronomers) who know (and want to know) nothing about constructing SOAP 
>>> messages and WSDL.
>> 
>> I definitely sympathize with this sentiment, and if it is possible to 
>> change the VOTable spec to work better with code binders, I think we should 
>> do it.
>
> Do we believe that astronomers are likely to get their hands dirty with web 
> services even using such "easy" ways of working as code-binding tools?
> Excluding the kinds of people who read these lists and turn up to IVOA 
> meetings I don't know anyone who falls into this category.
> But maybe I just don't get out much.
>
>> That said, I'm actually not sure that the code binding approach is that 
>> much easier when you consider the quality of the API (into a complex 
>> structure) compared to your favorite, hand-hewn VOTable library.
>
> Yes.  Putting these two points together I'm not sure that this line of
> reasoning is itself a good reason for change (though I'm not necessarily
> weighing in on either side of the do-we-change-VOTable-schema debate
> overall).
>
> Mark
>
> -- 
> Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
> m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/
>