too much complexity?

[Roy Williams]

This registry schema is getting to be very complex. Even to understand the
simplest xml instance, there need to be 6 or 8 schemas ingested. When we
make binding tools for VOResource, there are hundreds of classes generated,
one for each element. The number of people in the world who fully understand
the details can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I am reminded of a
Bill going through Parliament, having special interests adding their own
pork-barrel projects. The rule in NVO is not to attempt completeness, but
rather to get 95% of the use cases with 20% of the work. How can we return
to this maxim?

These are the burning questions for me:

(1) Is this schema modular? Do I need to parse all the optional modules in
order to work with the core? What is the semantic nature of the core module?

(2) What is the list of metadata formats that the registry covers? To me it
is Services, Datasets, Projects, Organizations. Why are "people" still in
the registry? Can't Astrogrid do their own thing somehow without bothering
IVOA, since they are the ones that want this? They can make a "person"
schema that includes VOResource, rather than forcing VOResource to include
"person".

(3) What small committee is responsible for additions -- and pruning -- in
the light of experience? Let us form this in Strasbourg. What is the best
number of people? 6? 10?

(4) Why are there suddenly five kinds of linking relationship? If simple
"citation" is good enough for the Journals, why is it not good enough for
VO? Half the people filling in these forms will do nothing in response to a
complicated question -- and so we lose metadata -- but they will recognize
and respond to the word "citations".

(5) If a Fortran programmer even older than me approaches the registry to
publish, or to query, can we make something understandable for him/her? What
does that form look like? Our primary purpose is capturing that metadata,
not pandering to the most complex cases.

(6) How many registry entries will there be for Vizier? If it is only one,
then I suspect few people will be interested in the registry. If it is one
for each of the 5,000 catalogs, then how many fields in VOResource will be
filled in for each?

(7) Am I the only one with these mutinous thoughts?


--------
Caltech Center for Advanced Computing Research
roy at cacr.caltech.edu
626 395 3670