VOTable alternative?

[Chenzhou Cui]

Alasdair Allan wrote:

>>>Is anyone interested in an activity to come up with an *alternative*
>>>to VOTable?
>>>
>>>I'm concerned that VOTable is contrary to the normal usage of xml, eg:
>>>the metadata for a table is in a proprietary format rather than in XML
>>>Schema;  it is embedded within the document; all table data is
>>>contained within TD elements making it impossible to use normal xml
>>>querying mechanisms.
>>>      
>>>
>
>I think you'll find people very reluctant at this stage to do such a
>radical rethink. Were reaching the stage where people have time and effort
>invested in parsing software, as the show of hands in the IVOA meeting in
>Strasburg illustrated, while we haven't quite reached the stage where
>we're in a FITS-type lockin, its getting there. If we are going to do
>something this radical we really have to do it soon, and with the
>agreement of all the major players.
>  
>
The VOTable is the first standard published by IVOA. The format has been
adopted by not only most of IVOA projects but also some other users. I
think it will be better for us to think over before we redesign the
standard, esp. when it can't be compatible with its previous version.
If  the redesigned version couldn't be much better than the original
one, it would damage our previous effort and bring difficulities to its
users.


-- 
============================================================
Chenzhou Cui
National Astronomical Observatory | Tel: (8610)64841695
Chinese Academy of Sciences       | FAX: (8610)64878240
Datun Road 20A, Chaoyang District | Email: ccz at bao.ac.cn
Beijing 100012, China             | WWW: www.lamost.org/~cb
============================================================