VOTable 1.1 - XPath to data in header

[Alasdair Allan]

Martin Hill wrote:
> What I would like to propose is a *mandatory* new element (<DATAPATH>?)
> as a child of the <FIELD> element, that has as value an XPath to the
> data elements (the column <TD> elements) that that FIELD element
> describes.

There is no way I'd agree to this as a mandatory element. Making
astronomers learn XPath to write a simple VOTable makes the learning curve
too high. If it all gets too complicated, astronomers won't use VOTable
format internally for their data and VOTable will only be used by the
community as something they convert _out of_ rather than something that 
contains goodness in itself (and much goodness such as UCD1+ could be lost 
as a result). This is pretty much unacceptable...

Simple interfaces for simple problems. VOTable is a perfectably workable 
standard, lets not overload it. Keeping it as lean as possible has to be
our top priority at this point!

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