applications software metadata

[John Taylor]

   -- What is the purpose and intended usage of the applications registry?
> -- What exactly is meant by "application" How about these: Excel? 
> Apache webserver? STC schema? My Pipeline for My Data? A Java class to 
> translate sexagesimal to decimal? An IDL script? An IDL tutorial? IDL 
> itself?
I think this is a good question, but that we can make progress by 
focussing on the two more tightly defined categories of application 
described by Tony: server-side apps that can be plugged into a workflow 
and interactive (largely) client-side apps.   The benefit from 
describing apps in a registry rather than relying on Google is that we 
can get some degree of automation.   Server side apps are covered by the 
UWS discussions, so here's a use case from the desktop side that I'd 
like to see addressed.

A group of us are working at making common desktop applications 
interoperate using a simple messaging protocol.  Supposing the user is 
manipulating some data in an application and wishes to view it in 
another app.  I'd like my first app to be able to throw up a dialog box 
to query the registry based on: keywords from the user, whether the app 
supports the messaging protocol and if it does whether it understands 
the message my first app will send to instruct it to load the data.  
After the user has selected a suitable app, I want it to be 
automatically downloaded (if necessary) and started.  Now clearly, this 
isn't always going to be possible and I in many cases I might need to 
fall back to displaying a URL for the user to go fetch the app himself, 
but often we will be able to offer quite a lot of automation.

What other use cases do people have for client-side tools and the 
registry? 

John

ROE/AstroGrid/VOTech DS6