  In the last years, the need for automated real-time detection and
classification of astronomical transients began to be more impelling. Better
technologies involve a higher number of detected candidates and an automated
classification will allow dealing with this amount of data, every night. The
desired state-of-the-art in detection and classification will be presented in
its key features and different practical approaches will be introduced, as
well. Several ongoing and future surveys will be presented, showing the current
situation of Time-Domain Astronomy, and eventually compared with the desired
state-of-the-art. The final purpose of this paper is to highlight the general
technology readiness level with respect to the level yet to be achieved.
