On 3/22/2011 12:56 PM, Steve Hankin wrote:
>
>
> On 3/22/2011 5:40 AM, John Caron wrote:
>> On 3/21/2011 11:55 AM, Karl Taylor wrote:
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I haven't had time to follow all the discussion in detail, but in
>>> general I think CF should not add additional complexity unless the
>>> current way of encoding time is incomplete. As far as I know the
>>> encoding is indeed complete and given correct specification of the
>>> units (which include basetime) and a calendar, the calendar
>>> date/time can be calculated. This indeed requires a smart library,
>>> but I think that Bob Drach's CDMS correctly performs such a
>>> calculation.
>>>
>>> I'll try to go back and read the arguments, but I think I agree with
>>> most of what Steve Hankin has said.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Karl
>>
>> Hi Karl:
>>
>> There are 2 things incomplete from my POV:
>>
>> 1) CF specifies calendars, but theres no reference library that
>> implements them. If CDMS does so then perhaps we can leverage that.
>> 2) We need to be able to express/manipulate calendar dates better
>> that we can now with udunits.
>>
> Good summary.
>
>> I guess I could just say that im disatisfied with udunits as a
>> reference library for calendar time units. The grammar allows months
>> and years as time intervals when that doesnt make sense. There are
>> some other things that are unclear (ill post one in a second).
>> Anyway, I think the reliance that CF has on udunits is, um, suboptimal.
>
> No disagreement that udunits is "suboptimal" -- incomplete formatting
> functions and having a couple of small inconsistencies (e.g. "months"
> as a unit). Arguably, though, it is the best currently available
> implementation and data model for the CF problem space. So shouldn't
> we simply be talking about improving udunits? While there is no
> current reference library, the required concepts are already very well
> tested in code -- decades of successful practice in multiple
> applications, including Ingrid, CDAT, Ferret, GrADS (presumably) and
> others). What is missing is the human resource to formulate a
> community specification and implement it. (Are you volunteering?)
sure - you do mean implement in Java, dont you ;^)
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Received on Fri Mar 25 2011 - 16:56:33 GMT
