VO and ADEC identifiers

[Ray Plante]

Hi Alberto M.,

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003, Alberto Micol wrote:
> In one sentence I would simply answer that the instrument names
> do not add anything to the identifiers, hence they should not be used.
> Instrument names are part of the metadata associated with
> the data nothing to do with the identifier.

>From the perspective of the IVOA ID WD, what appears within the 
authorityID portion of the ID is up to the owner of the authorityID 
(apart from character constraints); it merely defines a namespace.  The WD 
recommends a DNS-like name as a way of avoiding collisions.  The ADEC 
proposal suggested names based on instrument for the same reason (I 
believe).  Systems will not interpret the name semantically; any suggested 
semantics is only as a pnuemonic for humans.  

> Altogether, I would prefer, as Arnold suggests, a simpler,
> less miss-interpretable, less arbitrary, hence not subject to the taste
> of people,  two-key design (plus the scheme),  something like:
> 
> ivoa://NASA.ESA/HST#U3814G02T

This is largely consistant with the current IVOA ID WD 
(http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/IVOARegWp03/WD-ID-20030830.html).

cheers,
Ray