Hi all,

I'm a bit concerned about the number of version increments we have made 
to the CF convention so far this year. A lot of software and systems 
depend on CF (as is the nature of standards) and I'm worrying about 
software keeping up with the spec. Even more worrisome to me is the 
complexity and maintainability of software that tries to track and deal 
with an increasing number of versions. I know the recent changes weren't 
sweeping in nature, I'm just wondering if quarterly changes to the 
version number aren't a bit excessive for a standards document.

The "Rules for CF Conventions Changes" document says that once a ticket 
is closed and accepted, the changes are added to the specification 
document and the version number is incremented. It also mentions that 
the changes are provisional "until at least two applications have 
successfully interpreted the test data". I'm wondering about two changes 
to these change rules:

1) Decide on a schedule for version number increments (quarterly, 
semi-annual, ... ?)
2) Don't add changes to the upcoming version of the specification 
document "until at least two applications have successfully interpreted 
the test data".

I know this might slow the process down but I'm not sure that isn't a 
good thing.

On another note, how is the test data and successful interpretation by 
applications being tracked? Is each ticket required to have test data? 
How fully do the applications need to interpret the data? Did ticket #18 
(the horizontal CRS ticket) have test data? And if so, are there 
applications that successfully interpret and use the ellipsoidal earth 
attributes? [The change rules document doesn't actually mention 
applications _using_ any additional information, is that intentional?]


Ethan


Velimir Mlaker1 wrote:
> Dear community,
>
> Version 1.2 of the CF Conventions has been released (see 
> http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents).
>
> This update includes changes detailed in Trac tickets #18 
> (http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/18) and #25 
> (http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/25).
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Velimir Mlaker
> PCMDI
>
>   

-- 
Ethan R. Davis                                Telephone: (303) 497-8155
Software Engineer                             Fax:       (303) 497-8690
UCAR Unidata Program Center                   E-mail:    [EMAIL PROTECTED]
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO  80307-3000                       http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
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