VOTable alternative?

[Alasdair Allan]

> I didn't realise that there were five: I had assumed that BINARY would
> always be inline (as it avoids the awkwardness of having two separate
> files which must be transported together). 

That isn't awkwardness, its cleverness. 

The file can be pointed to using a URI, the file could be located
anywhere. This means the only thing that has to be passed by intermediate
services is a small bundle of XML, which has all the descriptive
meta-data.

This means that services which aren't interested in actually reading or
modifying the data, but need to know something about it so it can be
passed on to another service (or categorised etc) don't have to download
the actual data. Only the services that need it have to do that...

This is a VERY good thing! and one of the serious advantages of the 
format.

> I also assumed that FITS had to be a separate file - is there any point 
> in FITS inline...

I must admit, I was suprised by this one as well, I didn't knowyou could 
do that. I can't really think of a use for it either...

Al.
-- 
Dr. A. Allan, School of Physics, University of Exeter