where next?

[Ray Plante]

Hi Clive,

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Clive Page wrote:
> I'm taking up the challenge to get involved with this again, 

(Hooray! ;-)

> Experience
> of the Internet shows that hand-compiled directories simply don't scale,
> but that robot-generated lists can produce adequate search engines.

I completely agree with this.  When it comes to low-level information,
sharing metadata can and should be easily automated: we attach an SIAP
style interface to a DB rather than hand-registering each record.  At the
next level up, e.g. the service interface, we have things like WSDL.  
While there is a philosophical question about whether one manually creates
a WSDL, the fact that a provider can create and manage that information
locally but have the harvesting to centralize it automatically aids
tremendously to the scaling.  Thus, I think it is important to leverage
off of WSDL/Web/Grid service mechanisms as much as possible.

It's the highest level information that is most difficult to fully 
automate.  The main reason is that this information, for most part does 
not currently exist in a structured form; in fact, much of it may only 
exist in people's heads.  It's not needed for local operation but is 
needed for interoperability.  Still, an approach featuring local creation 
and control is important to improve scaling.  

(Note: that WSDL does not have structures intended for capturing 
curation and capability information in a structured way--just interfaces.) 

cheers,
Ray