VOEvent 20110215 notes

[Rob Seaman]

Hi Norman,

> On 2011 Mar 17, at 23:23, Steve Allen wrote:
> 
>> On Thu 2011-03-17T16:21:08 -0700, Bob Denny hath writ:
>>> 
>>> I would strongly suggest we explicitly adopt the date/time format as understood
>>> by XML (type="xs:dateTime"). This is indeed a sub-set of ISO-8601. Straying from
>>> this would preclude machine parsing of dates within an XML code/object-model
>>> binding.

Your original comment was specific to section 3.2.3, which is the date and time of the creation of the packet.  I believe Bob was urging a broader mandate for XML usage in VOEvent and/or IVOA, and that Steve was replying to Bob's position not yours.

By all means Steve and Bob and likely Arnold should speak up here, but folks should note that 3.2.3 just discusses the publication timestamp for the packet.  I've added the suggested reference to http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime.html - folks might also want to review and comment on the schema at:

	http://www.ivoa.net/xml/VOEvent/VOEvent-v2.0.xsd

> I agree with Bob, though there does seem to be some ambiguity in <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#dateTime> over what year '0000' represents.

Discussions of timekeeping are like the opening sequence of Indiana Jones when the ball starts rolling down the ramp.  Some ambiguity indeed...

Rob