Sorry, should have read trac tickets 27 and 24 before posting my response. But I have since read those and posted my painfully extensive contributions there; they are consistent with what I wrote here. (I think
http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/<
http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/24>24 has some particularly heavy lifting re your points, Steve.)
John
At 12:02 PM -0700 4/10/08, Steve Hankin wrote:
>All,
>
>This thread and the other couple that are going in parallel are getting us to examine important fundamentals of CF "philosophy". In the spirit of reaching a shared understanding of those fundamentals (effectively "voting"), I'm tossing my own viewpoint (a probably idiosyncratic and definitely simplified hat) into the ring here:
>
> ==>Note: We clearly need to develop use cases that clarify when and for what specific purposes standard_names are being used (Balaji's point). The following points presume that valid use cases do exist.
>
>1. The CF standard name list should be self-contained, internally-consistent and as complete as we deem its needs to be for our identified user base.
>It should not attempt to be so extensible that it can address all possible user communities. (Jonathan's point)
>Individual standard names should not attempt to be so complete that they serve as definitions. (Bryan's point)
>(We hope that controlled vocabularies created by other communities will try to achieve similar goals.)
>2. Vocabulary translation services should provide the means for translation between lists generated by different communities. (Roy's point)
>3. CF should define optional attributes that allow a CF file to point to "external" vocabularies, but there should be no aspect of strict CF compliance that requires reference to these external resources. (Benno's point -- see http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/ticket/27)
>Specialized communities can use these means to "personalize" their CF files, while retaining CF compliance.
> - Steve
>
>P.S. The implication of this approach is that if no CF standard_name for a given parameter exists at the time that files must be created, then no standard_name attribute should be included for that parameter. However, bullet #3 allows the file to include a non-CF, community-specific standardized parameter name and a link to its vocabulary. Vocabulary translation services can hope to provide the link back to a CF standard_name if one is created at a later time.
>
--
----------
John Graybeal <mailto:graybeal at mbari.org> -- 831-775-1956
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Marine Metadata Initiative: http://marinemetadata.org || Shore Side Data System: http://www.mbari.org/ssds
Received on Fri Apr 11 2008 - 00:05:30 BST
