Another point which you did not stress is that with a revision tracking
system like git / github, the evolution of the document can be tracked and
if necessary reverting to an earlier version is almost trivial. Features
and new concepts can be introduced and developed, polished and refined on
separate branches until they are ready for inclusion in the master
document. Although developed for software development, git is clearly
well-suited to constructing the kinds of documents we are dealing with.
Excellent idea.
Chris
On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Signell, Richard <rsignell at usgs.gov>
wrote:
> CF Folks,
>
> One of the reasons for moving the CF Conventions and Standard Names to
> Github was so that the community could help support CF development.
>
> The github fork/branch/pull-request process allows contributors to
> submit changes that can be discussed, modified, discussed some more
> and then eventually approved with the click of a button, taking the
> burden off of one or two people to make all the changes while leaving
> the current approval process intact.
>
> Since we have two different version tracked documents (the CF Standard
> Name list and the CF Conventions document), we should have two
> different repositories. Then for each repository, instead of multiple
> entire documents tracked separately, we should have just evolving
> document that can be tagged with release numbers when specific
> versions are approved.
>
> This is the way different versions are handled in git, and would allow
> us to see proposed and approved changes naturally. John Graybeal set
> up an example of what this would look like:
>
> https://github.com/graybealski/cf-conventions-work/commit/bb04b242216fa034be35ef6e61d5664d3eae1c1e
>
> I would also argue that we should version CF with the nearly-standard
> community practice of numbering system of major.minor.bugfix. This
> would allow errors (like typos) in an approved release (like 1.6.0) to
> be bugfixed to (1.6.1), which would mean "no new concepts were
> introduced, only bugs were fixed".
>
> What do people think?
>
> Thanks,
> Rich
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Richard P. Signell (508) 457-2229
> USGS, 384 Woods Hole Rd.
> Woods Hole, MA 02543-1598
> _______________________________________________
> CF-metadata mailing list
> CF-metadata at cgd.ucar.edu
> http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/cf-metadata
>
--
--
--
=======================================================================
Dr. Christopher M. Duncombe Rae c <deirdre.byrne at noaa.gov>
hristopher.duncombe.rae at noaa.gov
Oceanographer / Data Scientist
IOOS/NOAA, Suite 1225, 1100 Wayne Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA
Tel: +1-301-427-2450 Fax: +1-301-427-2073
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cgd.ucar.edu/pipermail/cf-metadata/attachments/20140922/970f5930/attachment.html>
Received on Mon Sep 22 2014 - 09:24:11 BST
