On 1/4/11 10:15 AM, John Caron wrote:
So exactly how much does NetCDF-Java do for you? Can I ask it for a
land-sea mask and it will look for the multiple ways that might be
stored and give it back to me? If so, pretty cool!
It cant do that right now, but that functionality could be provided in a
standard API, and there is a framework for implementing the API by
different dataset conventions. This idea of providing a common API is
pretty much the idea of the "Common Data Model" or CDM.
well, there is a data model, and then there are conventions. Having the
library understand the conventions is a great idea. For this simple
example, it would solve the problem, and doing it in one place, rather
than separately in all client code. I've thought of working on a CF
python package to build on Jeff Whittaker's NetCDF4 package -- putting
all the CF convention stuff in one place.
> IFAIU, Python cant interact directly with Java (ie link to it).
Correct. It can potentially work with it through the JNI.
Here is a package to make that easier:
JCC 2.7: a C++ code generator for calling Java from C++/Python
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/JCC/2.7
Another option is GNU CNI -- have you tried to compile any of your code
with gcj? That would have the advantage of not having to run a JVM at all.
We have
an experimental project here to write a C library that communicates
across a socket to a "CDM stack" in Java, presumably much easier than
duplicating the CDM in C.
yup -- though then you have to running a server of some wort in Java,
yes? And does this work well across platforms (i.e. Windows?). It could
be pretty cool, though.
One of the pieces of that project is to put a
Python layer on top of that, as a way of making it immediately useful
and to get feedback on the API.
Sounds good -- Python is better for test code, too.
We are thinking of making Python an
important component of Unidata data access technologies (resources
permitting, etc, etc).
Also sounds good -- Python use is really growing in the scientific
community.
Another option is to duplicate the CDM in Python -- easier than C for
sure, probably easier than JAVA (though you've already got JAVA), but
not so useful to C/C++/Fortran developers.
There is also Jython, which can work directly with JAVA classes -- that
would be a fine way to do some scripting and testing, but not much use
to most Scientific Python users, who rely on the "cpython" interpreter,
and other C packages, like numpy.
-Chris
--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice
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