The vocabulary effort is very exciting, there are a lot of messages. But
I am still waiting for the cost benefit analysis. The number of emails
sent to this group shows us the cost. But, for myself at least, I am
torn between the two approaches to defining "Why" this event may have
occurred, asking if the benefits of the higher cost version outweighs
its costs. The older I get, the more I want to keep with KISS (Keep It
Simple and Sufficient), and the less I am interested in finding the
general solution. Anyway, here are the choices for VOEvent 2.0 as I see
them:
(1) The KISS approach:
We could follow the astronomer's telegram (*) and define a short list of
words to be used to describe event hypothesis, such as those below, with
"check all those that apply". The query and API is simple:
select * where event.why == "Novae" .....
if eventType == "Novae" then .....
If this is not sufficiently precise, I would like to know the plausible,
real-life situation, where such imprecision will become a burden. In
(2) The vocabulary approach:
I know very little about it except that precision of expression is
possible (eg "I want Supernovae Ia but not Ic"). I would like to be
disembarrassed of my horrible prejudices. I worry that there are many
vocabularies with no agreement. I worry that there are many
representation technologies for vocabularies that use complicated
languages. I worry that use of vocabularies will require knowledge of
complex matters like namespaces, schema extension, sparql, skos, rdf,
owl, etc etc. I worry about no being able to use SQL or even Xquery but
must learn a new query language. I worry that the creator of the VOEvent
will also need to understand these complex technologies, meaning that
few event streams will be done this way. Are any of these valid worries?
I do not want to pooh-pooh this promising vocabulary effort. It's just that I have not seen the reasons why (2) is so much better than (1) that the effort is justified.
Roy
(*) http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/
click on "Post a New Telegram", you see these categories:
Request for Observations, A Comment, AGN, Asteroids, Binaries, Black
Holes, Comets, Cosmic Rays, Cataclysmic Variables, Globular Clusters, Gamma-Ray Bursts, Meteors, Microlensing Events, Neutron Stars, Novae, Planets, Planets (minor), Pulsars, Quasars, Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters,Solar System Objects, The Sun, Supernovae, Supernova Remnants, Transients, Variables, Stars Received on 2008-02-04Z23:10:45