Cecelia et. al.,

An important and somewhat awkward topic. I like your suggestion, myself. I might suggest slightly different terminology to describe it, though. I think we are proposing that _for the present_ *gridspec *and/or *ugrid *(there need not be the same answer for both) ought to be published as independent standards, and therefore have their own version numbering. These standards publications would internally refer to CF as a "normative standard" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative#Standards_documents -- "considered to be a prescriptive part")

 * They could be published on their own Wiki sites, or they could
   alternatively be published on the CF site.  The latter approach
   would emphasize their close relationship to CF -- part of a family
   of standards.  But they would not be "chapters" in the CF document
   ... at this time.
 * The CF document would point to them, say, in brief appendices that
   explained that gridspec and/or ugrid were at this time being managed
   as separate standards.
 * There would preferably be a generally agreed strategy, that when
   judged sufficiently stable at a future time, the ugrid and gridspec
   standards would become chapters in some future version CF ... but
   not yet.

Underlying any final decision would be an open-eyed awareness of how stable and well-tested ugrid and/or gridspec rightly are (or are not) at the current time. This would need to be judged by people who use the standards on a day to day basis *_and_* interchange files containing outputs of distinct models with one another. I do not myself have this level of day-to-day familiarity to judge the demonstrated stability and interoperability of either gridspec or ugrid datasets ... but it seems like you and your group probably do, Cecelia, which is why I'm inclined to back this as a sensibly cautious idea that leaves the wiggle room needed for rapid evolution.

    - Steve

==========================

On 12/5/2012 11:43 AM, Cecelia DeLuca wrote:


Thanks Alex and Jeff -  sorry, I'm not clear on how you plan to proceed.

Is the following an acceptable plan?

Create a separate version now for GridSpec, so that it is not versioned in lockstep
with the rest of CF.

Create a fixed (non-wiki) specification document for this version of GridSpec. [Again, that would be nice because then we could begin to build software on it now.]

When changes or updates occur, update the version and create a new specification
document.

Point to the GridSpec version and spec document that is current when CF 1.7 comes out.

If this isn't an okay plan, could you please indicate what you will do to be sure that GridSpec versions are unambiguous, and all versions of GridSpec will be very
easy to retrieve?

Thanks,
Cecelia



On 12/5/2012 11:33 AM, Alexander Pletzer wrote:
Thanks Jeff!

--Alex

On 12/05/2012 11:04 AM, Jeffrey F. Painter wrote:
Yes, Gridspec didn't make it into CF 1.6 and will be in 1.7. There's no scheduled release date, but I hope to get to it soon.

I'm sorry I couldn't reply sooner - I was on vacation from November 22 and just got back.

- Jeff Painter


On 11/26/12 10:49 AM, Allyn Treshansky wrote:
Hello Alex,

Thank you for the reply.  My comments are inline.

Thanks,
Allyn

On 11/26/2012 09:45 AM, Alexander Pletzer wrote:
Hi Allyn,

On 11/23/2012 01:02 PM, Allyn Treshansky wrote:
Hello.

I am confused as to the relationship between GridSpec and the official CF Conventions. In particular, it's not clear whether or not GridSpec is part of the latest version (v1.6).

According to the CF Tracker [https://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/63], the GridSpec proposal has been approved. However, there is no mention of it in the latest Convention Documentation [http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions/1.6/cf-conventions.html].
I think Gridspec did not quite make it into CF 1.6, Jeff Painter may know whether it will be incorporated into 1.7.

Okay.  Is there a scheduled release date for v1.7?

The ticket does reference a formal extension to CF [https://ice.txcorp.com/trac/modave/wiki/CFProposalGridspec]. Presumably, this is what users should reference for GridSpec documentation. Is that correct,
Yes.

Okay.

or is there another document we should be using? And it remains odd that there is no link from the v1.6 documentation to GridSpec documentation (either that techX page or another one).

Assuming that the techX page is the correct location for GridSpec CF documentation, it is lacking any version information.
You mean CF version?

Yes.  I mean which CF version does that documentation apply to.

How will future governance be handled without that? Should we consider the page as it stands CF version 1.6?

Also, can the GridSpec convention only be expressed as a netCDF file?
Yes it was written for netcdf. I'm assuming that anything that can be done in netcdf can be done in XML though I'm not a XML specialist.

Best,

--Alex
Are there other formats (such as XML) for the CF Conventions that support GridSpec?

Many thanks for your help.

Regards,
Allyn
--
Allyn Treshansky
NESII/CIRES/NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
325 Broadway, Boulder CO 80305 USA
Email:[email protected]
Phone: +1 303-497-7734


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Allyn Treshansky
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325 Broadway, Boulder CO 80305 USA
Email:[email protected]
Phone: +1 303-497-7734


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--
===================================================================
Cecelia DeLuca
NESII/CIRES/NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
325 Broadway, Boulder 80305-337
Email:[email protected]
Phone: 303-497-3604


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