Dear Phil > Perhaps the recent > flurry of CF proposal activity in part reflects a general desire to > 'play catch-up'.
Yes, I think that is the case. It certainly is the case for the two proposals I have made, on the axis and cell_methods attributes. These were discussed on the email list and in abeyance for a long time because we had no way to adopt them formally until we agreed the new rules. > I can produce some simple test files for the changes at CF 1.2. But > the question of what constitutes application conformance is, I > suggest, not easily defined. For instance, I could create a noddy > netcdf file with two new grid mapping attributes, as follows: Yes, I think such a file would be useful, because it does at least provide input data that the cf-checker can check for conformance, and other applications could likewise check that they can read in and interpret, if they are interested in these features. I agree with you that what "compliance" actually means for an application is ill-defined. This is an issue which has come up before, of course. Since most of CF is optional, in one sense (but not a very useful sense) an application is compliant even if it ignores all that optional metadata. On the other hand I am sure no application currently exists which interprets all the metadata. But I don't think that means the metadata is not useful. It can still be read by humans, it describes the data properly, and we only add features when people have a need for them (usually people who intend to produce data). Best wishes Jonathan _______________________________________________ CF-metadata mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
