[CF-metadata] minimal CF design criterion

From: Jonathan Gregory <j.m.gregory>
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:20:46 +1100

Dear Steve

Replying to a comment you made in ticket 68:

> You've probably noticed that Jonathan and I come from different
> philosophical camps on these discussions. My position is that the design-
> by-committee standards process often leads to standards that are too
> complex -- often much too complex. CF is significantly too complex
> already. When weighing topics that seem "nice" or "general" or
> "potentially useful" but no one is articulating a practical need for them,
> I believe the jury (ourselves) should be instructed to weigh those topics
> using a "guilty until proven innocent" guideline. That is our bulwark
> against creeping complexity.

I don't think we disagree about this. In CF we have always applied the
principle that we only add to CF when there is a need to do so, i.e. there is
a use-case for something which cannot already be represented in CF, and which
is likely to be needed by a significant number of users (as far as we can
judge). I would usually oppose a new and equivalent way of doing something
which we can already do.

Best wishes

Jonathan
Received on Fri Jan 11 2013 - 04:20:46 GMT