philosophical question about VOEvent

[Rob Seaman]

On Mar 22, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:

> I<What> was granted a flexibility of representation through ad hoc  
> grouped params that the other elements don't enjoy.  It is natural  
> for someone contributing the heavy lifting of designing specific  
> packets for new VOEvent customers to find this attractive.  However,  
> folks who have designed and handled lots of FITS data might  
> recognize the sirens sweetly singing.

I should expand on this.  FITS has keyword=value pairs that are  
similar to VOEvent's <Param> element's name and value attributes.  We  
improved on FITS a bit with the unit and ucd attributes and the  
<Group> element.  We also plan to add a data type and to restrict  
duplicate usage (although I don't believe that we can count on XML  
Schema to enforce the latter).

However, this retains (by design) a non-formal, loose-fit  
flexibility.  We deemed a low cost of buy-in to be more critical than  
a tailor-made schema for each flavor of packet.  We rely on UCD's and  
in v2.0 on purpose-built thesauri to provide enough information for  
client applications to sort out the underlying diverse data models in  
<What>.  But VOEvent remains an XML-Schema based standard.

VOEvent is a tool for enabling the scientific assessment of sampled  
phenomena - that is, for inferring the actual physical noumenon (the  
"Ding an sich" of Kant) underlying the observations.  <Why> is our  
element for carrying out this inference.  Since this is precisely  
where the scientific method (see Descartes) meets the road, <Why>  
should remain a more formalized part of the schema.  By all means,  
let's take this opportunity to improve the standard in this area.  But  
let's avoid subverting the intent of the standard.

> What new requirements are being revealed by these new data sets?   
> How best should we meet them in a coherently revised VOEvent  
> standard/schema?

Don't make me bring Marcus Aurelius into the discussion - as Emperor  
he tends to win most philosophical arguments :-)

Render unto Caesar.

Rob

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