[CF-metadata] what standard names are for

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 08:51:16 +0100

Dear Bryan (again!)

> I don't buy the argument that CF is self-describing. CF metafiles + the
> conventions document + software that can interpret the convention and the
> file lead to something that is "self-describing". If I can write software
> that pulls out standard names, I can write software that pulls the definition
> out as an option at the same time. Not only can. Should.

I think we differ on this because I don't want to depend so much on the
availability of powerful software, as in practice it may not exist. It certainly
will not exist (experience shows) and be widely available until quite a long
time (maybe years) after we agree conventions. Hence, I think CF files should
be self-describing as far as that can be "reasonably" achieved, so that users
can work successfully with them if they have at their disposal only the netCDF
library. That is, as you correctly anticipated, why I don't like the idea of
opaque URNs in CF files. Opaque URNs would be fine as identifiers in some
external tables, in which we set up equivalences between alternative names or
conventions.

But of course I welcome powerful software and convenient tools as well. So it
is a compromise, like many things in CF, and I don't take the "self-describing"
argument to the ultimate extreme of demanding definitions for everything in
the file, and so on. I would just rather use reasonably self-explanatory terms
instead of more opaque "jargon" terms as standard names.

Cheers

Jonathan
Received on Wed Apr 09 2008 - 01:51:16 BST