Hi Frederick,
On Fri, 6 May 2005, Frederic V. "Rick" Hessman wrote:
> > - It seems to me that VOThing is unlikely to be embraced as a name.
> > Suggestions? Perhaps this facility should exist underneath VOEvent
> > itself in some fashion. Other VO projects needing access would then
> > simply reference us in return.
>
> Remember: I purposefully used this terrible name to emphasize the need
> for a VO-wide solution. How about "VOConcept"?
>
> It seems that the UCD community will also have to address the usefuless
> of the present UCD usage: one requires a separate parser to disentagle
> what "em.X-ray;phot.count;obs.image" is supposed to mean, whereas
> parsing something like
>
> <group><ucd>em.X-ray</ucd><ucd>phot.count</ucd><ucd>obs.image</
> ucd><group>
>
> would fall out of the normal processing of the XML document with no
> real additional effort.
Possibly, but that makes UCDs tied to a particular representation (XML), which I don't believe should be the way to go. If UCDs are to be used widely, they should remain as independent of the "way to write them" as possible. Some people (include me) would like to use UCDs in a non XML context, and build our own tools. Furthermore, which usages do you have in mind where a piece of software would be required to "understand" the meaning of a UCD? (other than just compare with other UCDs, either completely or partially)
Cheers,
Patricio
--- Patricio F. Ortiz pfo-at-star.le.ac.uk Department of Physics & Astronomy Phone: +44 (0)116 252 2015 University of Leicester Leicester, LE1 7RH, UKReceived on 2005-05-06Z10:39:58