Dear @davidhassell 

Yes, that's a good point. I suppose the important word is "interpret". It 
should be possible to get some understanding of what the CF metadata means just 
by reading it, without having to look up anything. In particular, that means we 
don't use numerical codes. Instead, we use controlled vocabularies. As you say, 
there are external resources which define the terms allowed by these 
vocabularies. However, the terms themselves should be self-explanatory, so that 
the file alone can be interpreted by a reader, although they may have to look 
elsewhere to find out all the detail of its meaning. Standard names, PROJ 
projection names, grid mapping names, cell methods etc. are all capable of 
interpretation by themselves, and I think that's important. Do you agree? If 
so, perhaps we can find a way to explain this succintly.

I feel that WKT is not so clearly self-explanatory. It's a bit more like code. 
That is one reason why I have reservations about allowing WKT to be supplied 
without equivalent CF-defined metadata. Taxa IDs also might not be 
self-explanatory, but this may not prevent the file from being interpreted, if 
you are clear that it is some biological taxon which is meant.

Jonathan

-- 
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/cf-convention/cf-conventions/issues/273#issuecomment-642595625

This list forwards relevant notifications from Github.  It is distinct from 
[email protected], although if you do nothing, a subscription to the 
UCAR list will result in a subscription to this list.
To unsubscribe from this list only, send a message to 
[email protected].

Reply via email to