Community feedback re TAP metadata

[Doug Tody]

Hi Pedro -

Of course others than the two of us will need to be involved in writing
the specification, but I think the design of the TAP protocol should
reflect the collective views and experience of the technical experts
group as well as be consistent with the related DAL protocols where
possible.

Can you respond please, to my suggestion that we jointly produce and
discuss a sketch of the protocol and its interface (list of operations
etc.) before investing a lot of time in drafting a detailed written
specification.  This is a much easier thing to do than writing a
formal specification, and is an efficient way to deal with the high
level design.  It is hard for me to see what is the harm in this,
and if we do not do this, there may be insufficient time once a draft
appears to identify and resolve any issues before the May interop.

 	- Doug



On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, Pedro Osuna wrote:

> Dear Doug,
>
> there is an action:
>
> +VOQL-TEG-1/AI#9 on PO/DT: to start writing the TAP document
>
> We agreed to have a first draft within our group, and then discuss over
> it. The action on me (and you) does not mean _I have to write the
> document_, but I have to coordinate its writing (therefore, I put the
> best resources within our team on it). The document is not my document,
> neither yours, but the group's document and it will be -since the very
> beginning- an IVOA document. I want to have this stated very clearly
> here.
>
> There is a danger in having eternal discussions on something forever
> without people being able to refer to anything written.
>
> Not only did we agree to start the writing of such a document, but I
> promised -as VOQL chairman- to have a very first draft of an eventual
> TAP by China interop.
>
> The above agreements have been clear to everyone and have been done with
> transparency, and fed to the VOQL community in general and to the IVOA
> Exec in particular. I remind you that the VOQL-TEG group and the VOQL
> group overall have the difficult task to disentangle the otherwise mixed
> structure of the past in several areas, including the Table access.
>
> I also remind you that we invited you permanently to this Technical
> Experts Group to ensure transparency and cohesion overall within the
> possibly involved IVOA groups.
>
> I hope this is clear enough. Otherwise, I would not like this forum to
> become, in any case, a hot issue discussion place. This is a technical
> experts group. Should you have more political, executive or other type
> of questions, please direct them to me and we can discuss them off the
> line.
>
> Thanks.
> Cheers,
> P.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 2007-03-07 at 08:57 -0700, Doug Tody wrote:
>> On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, Pedro Osuna wrote:
>>
>>> Without entering into details -that we should discuss either tomorrow or
>>> in a later meeting- I want to let everyone know that within our own crew
>>> here working on VOQL issues (led by Inaki) we also have Aurelien Stebe
>>> working on the TAP initial draft definition.
>>
>> It is good to hear of progress on a TAP specification; but shouldn't
>> we agree, within this group, upon the key issues and the basic form of
>> the interface before drafting such a specification?  Ideally before
>> writing this document, we should identify and resolve all the key
>> issues (many of which have already been identified here), and produce
>> a sketch of the service interface identifying the operations, and
>> for each, at least the major inputs and outputs.  Also; TAP is much
>> more a data access problem, than a registry problem.
>>
>>  	- Doug
> -- 
> Pedro Osuna Alcalaya
>
> European Space Agency (ESA)
> European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)
> Research and Scientific Support Department (RSSD)
> Astronomy Science Operations Division (SCI-SD)
> e-mail: Pedro.Osuna at esa.int
> Tel + 34 91 813 13 14    Fax: +34 91 813 11 72
> -------------------------------------------------
> European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)
> P.O. Box 50727
> E-28080 Villafranca del Castillo
> MADRID - SPAIN
>
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