GRBs retractions - Param or value?

[Petr Kubanek]

Alasdair Allan wrote:
> ..
> For the most part they're astronomers who will view the messages as  
> text, plain ASCII text. If 1 in 10 end users actually use an XML  parser 

VOEvent is designed to integrate GCN 2, right? GCN is used by many (seems > 50) telescopes at the world and it works - with plain binary UDP packets, which content is well maintained and DOCUMENTED.

I count to that 1 in 10 end user which will need to parse VOEvent using XML parser and will need to decide based on content of VOEvent message what do to - if the observer have to decide, it will be too late - we speak about reaction time in seconds to GRB alert, not minutes before some observer parse it, retype coordinates to telescope and finally observe it. Not to mention fact, that we run instalations without any observer at all.

Mayby I'm biased by that. Well, I'll try to generate schema for GCN, so we can then compare which approach is better - without solid examples, we will just put arguments with suit each side. Nobody at VOEvent seems to dig GCN packets description and put out UCDs which will be used to describe GRB - so I'll do that for schema.

Petr