Jeff,

I couldn't find either the CF Conventions policies, or the 'reST-based partial 
document at readthedocs.org'.  Can you please provide more specific pointers?

John

On Mar 11, 2014, at 14:08, Jeffrey F. Painter <[email protected]> wrote:

> The issue of choosing a markup language to use is more involved than it might 
> seem.
> 
> Here's one of many issues which would have to be settled:
> 
> Present CF Conventions policies require that all changes be provisional, and 
> marked as such in the document, until determined to be permanent at a later 
> time (this determination has never been made).
> That's the meaning of all the pink and yellow highlighting in the document at 
> cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov.  The version control system (presently svn) keeps track of 
> differences, but that's not enough - the document itself has to be marked to 
> show what is and isn't provisional.  Getting that right is a significant part 
> of the job of producing a new version of the document.
> 
> So compare, for example, section 2.5.1 of the DocBook-based CF Conventions 
> document at cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov (my apologies if the site gets blocked again!) 
> with the same section in the reST-based partial document at readthedocs.org.  
>  The more readable one doesn't follow the present policy - but maybe that 
> means the policy should be revised.
> 
> - Jeff
> 
> On 3/11/14 1:53 PM, Signell, Richard wrote:
>> Richard Hattersley started off this post showing how cool restructured
>> text was rendered:
>> http://cf-conventions.readthedocs.org/en/v1.6/
>> 
>> Why wouldn't we want to go this route?
>> 
>> -Rich
>> 
>> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 4:47 PM,<[email protected]>  wrote:
>>> 1. I think storing the conventions source in git is a great Idea which will 
>>> make reviewing updated much easier
>>> 2. Markdown (github's wiki format) may not be the best option. What about 
>>> latex?
>>> 3. Take a look at Pandoc for format conversion 
>>> (http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/). It works great for me and apparently 
>>> supports docbook.
>>> 
>>> Stephen.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Stephen Pascoe from iPhone
>>> 
>>> On 11 Mar 2014, at 20:29, "Jeffrey F. 
>>> Painter"<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> re word processor formats:  I'm not going that way, but if I had, it 
>>> wouldn't have involved proprietary software.  I was tempted because there 
>>> was no open-source XML editor which could usefully make sense of all 
>>> features of the existing CF Conventions document.
>>> 
>>> re markup languages: I haven't looked at any seriously, and most I've not 
>>> looked at at all.  Most of the CF Conventions document, like most any 
>>> document, is simple stuff which anything can handle.  But there are 
>>> features which I'm not so sure about - custom tags, cross-references, and 
>>> color-coded tables come to mind.  If an alternative markup language can't 
>>> do it all, then we have to consider how much we value the missing features.
>>> 
>>> - Jeff
>>> 
>>> On 3/11/14 1:14 PM, Chris Barker wrote:
>>> All,
>>> 
>>> Converting to a simpler, more tractable markup format would be nice, but a 
>>> couple comments:
>>> 
>>>> A few months ago I looked into converting to a word processor format, but 
>>>> it looked like a much bigger job than I could afford the time for.
>>> Please dont go that way anyway! XML may be a pain, but if you're going to 
>>> make a change, make a change to a format that is easier to mange in a 
>>> version control system, and doesn't require proprietary software to manage.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I am willing to take an initial crack at putting the CF Conventions 
>>> document in github format, if that's the missing piece.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> gitHub supports a number of different markup formats. Markdown is the 
>>> default, and is nice an simple, but pretty limited. So take a look at the 
>>> other options -- ReStructuredText (RST) may be a better option, for 
>>> instance.
>>> 
>>> -Chris
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> John
>>> 
>>> On Mar 11, 2014, at 09:44, "Jeffrey F. 
>>> Painter"<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Richard,
>>>> 
>>>> We (meaning LLNL people) don't really have positive plans to stay in 
>>>> DocBook format.   It is simply less effort to use it than to identify and 
>>>> convert to an alternative, if one exists.  We recently bought a copy of 
>>>> the XMLmind XML Editor, which makes in reasonably tractable to edit in 
>>>> DocBook.
>>>> 
>>>> I suspect that most markup languages won't do all features used in the CF 
>>>> Conventions document.  We may be able to work around that, but I'm not 
>>>> sure of it.  A few months ago I looked into converting to a word processor 
>>>> format, but it looked like a much bigger job than I could afford the time 
>>>> for.
>>>> 
>>>> I would be delighted if you could do this better!   You definitely have 
>>>> the right idea for where we should be.   And I hope that having this 
>>>> discussion on the cf-metadata list will bring out some more good ideas.  
>>>> For the next few weeks, I don't think we at LLNL will do more than make 
>>>> the documents, and the Trac system, reliably available on the web again, 
>>>> and put the document sources on github.
>>>> 
>>>> - Jeff
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 3/11/14 3:22 AM, Hattersley, Richard wrote:
>>>>> Hi Jeff,
>>>>> 
>>>>> That's excellent news. And thanks for the update - it'll save me 
>>>>> duplicating your efforts.
>>>>> 
>>>>> It looks like your current plans are for the source code to stay in 
>>>>> DocBook format. Do you also have any plans to allow "instant" visual 
>>>>> feedback? For example, to convert it to another format which can be 
>>>>> rendered by GitHub (https://github.com/github/markup#markups) or 
>>>>> reathedocs.org<http://reathedocs.org>?
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Richard
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: CF-metadata 
>>>>> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
>>>>>  On Behalf Of Jeffrey F. Painter
>>>>> Sent: 10 March 2014 20:04
>>>>> To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [CF-metadata] Editing/publishing workflow
>>>>> 
>>>>> Several of us at LLNL agree that a github-based system is the way to go 
>>>>> for the CF Conventions.  And the previous messages on this thread turn 
>>>>> out to be very timely!
>>>>> 
>>>>> For background, over the last few months our Plone-based web site has
>>>>> become unmaintainable as we lost infrastructure support.   Just a few
>>>>> days ago I gave up on fixing the system.  Matthew Harris has been working 
>>>>> on a new web site, located mostly at github.  It should be up within a 
>>>>> week.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The CF Conventions "source code" has for many years been in in DocBook,
>>>>> an xml dialect.  It is presently kept in a Subversion repository.   We
>>>>> will very likely make this available on github.
>>>>> 
>>>>> After the documents, the most important component of the CF Conventions 
>>>>> web site is the Trac issue-tracking system.  Last week I migrated it to a 
>>>>> more recent version on a new machine.  Over the next week I plan to 
>>>>> migrate it to the latest production version.  This will continue to be 
>>>>> hosted at LLNL, but a link to it will be on the github site.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I hope these changes will serve the CF community at least for the short 
>>>>> run, so we can think seriously about what systems to use in the long run.
>>>>> 
>>>>> - Jeff Painter
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 3/10/14 7:20 AM, Signell, Richard wrote:
>>>>>> Richard,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think moving to github would be a huge improvement.  The git model
>>>>>> and the tools that github provides would make it much easier for other
>>>>>> folks to propose changes, and for those changes to be reviewed,
>>>>>> discussed and merged.    I think Brian and a few others were also in
>>>>>> favor when we discussed this last fall, but we lacked someone to carry
>>>>>> the flag.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -Rich
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 7:35 AM, Hattersley, Richard
>>>>>> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
>>>>>>     wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I've recently been dipping into the UGRID conventions
>>>>>>> (https://github.com/ugrid-conventions/ugrid-conventions) and was
>>>>>>> struck by how pleasant the editing/publishing workflow was. Clearly
>>>>>>> from a content complexity point of view the UGRID conventions are
>>>>>>> smaller and simpler than CF so a direct comparison is not possible,
>>>>>>> but to help illustrate some of the possibilities I've prepared a
>>>>>>> cut-down demo version of the CF conventions document using GitHub and 
>>>>>>> "Read the Docs".
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The published versions of the demo are available from:
>>>>>>> http://cf-conventions.readthedocs.org. I've set the default version
>>>>>>> to 1.6, but by using the options in the bottom-left corner of the
>>>>>>> page it is possible to view 1.7-draft.1 instead. There is also a PDF
>>>>>>> option, but that currently has a few quirks which I've not attempted
>>>>>>> to address. NB. By ticking a box in GitHub, these published versions
>>>>>>> are automatically updated whenever the underlying content changes.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The underlying "source code" is defined using reStructuredText (reST)
>>>>>>> markup for processing by the Spinx document generator. It is hosted on 
>>>>>>> GitHub at:
>>>>>>> https://github.com/cf-metadata/cf-conventions. I created the reST
>>>>>>> markup using an off-the-shelf HTML-to-reST converter but it did
>>>>>>> require some subsequent manual tweaks.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I've also created a simple "pull request" to illustrate what happens
>>>>>>> when someone proposes a change:
>>>>>>> https://github.com/cf-metadata/cf-conventions/pull/1. NB. By default
>>>>>>> GitHub shows the changes in the source code, but it can also show a
>>>>>>> rendered version of the changes, much like the strikeout/highlight
>>>>>>> style used in the current workflow:
>>>>>>> https://github.com/cf-metadata/cf-conventions/pull/show/1/files/e7c84
>>>>>>> 59#diff-e7c84590262562a10e9fb4cf714098d3
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Is there interest in taking this further?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Richard Hattersley
>>>>>>> Benevolent Dictator of Iris - a CF library for Python:
>>>>>>> www.scitools.org.uk/iris<http://www.scitools.org.uk/iris>
>>>>>>> Met Office  FitzRoy Road  Exeter  Devon  EX1 3PB  United Kingdom
>>>>>>> Tel: +44 (0)1392 885702<tel:%2B44%20%280%291392%20885702>
>>>>>>> Email: 
>>>>>>> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
>>>>>>>    Web: www.metoffice.gov.uk<http://www.metoffice.gov.uk>
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
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>>> John Graybeal
>>> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> 
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>>> Oceanographer
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>> 
>> 
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John Graybeal
[email protected]



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