Dapper in-situ conventions spec available

[Joe Sirott]

Hi Steve,

I prefer an informal process. Perhaps we should let the discussion take 
its course and issue a new revision when everyone agrees that it's 
needed.  I'm willing to write that revision, if it's OK with everyone 
else out there.

- Joe

Steve Hankin wrote:
> Hi John, Joe, _Kyle,_ et. al.,
>
> Sorry for the delay joining the conversation.  I have been away on travel.
>
> Yes -- when the funding was found to support Joe in drafting this 
> specification the intention was that it would be followed by open 
> community discussions of the many individual issues.  The folks at 
> PCMDI who are hosting the new CF development site 
> (http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/) generously agreed to host these discussions.
>
> Kyle -- how should we handle this?  The discussion thread has already 
> taken off -- I count 9 messages so far on the dods-tech email list.  
> Would you like me to forward them to you?  Joe's initial document is 
> available at 
> http://www.epic.noaa.gov/epic/software/dapper/dapperdocs/conventions/
>
> Presumably this discussion will require a moderator and a document 
> editor (could be the same person).  Joe, are you willing to help with 
> this?   Jennifer?  others?
>
>     - Steve
>
> ====================================================
>
> John Caron wrote:
>> Hi Joe, et al:
>>
>> We have some various comments on this. Im wondering if you would 
>> prefer to have a seperate conversation on a possible new version of 
>> the spec, or just discuss the spec as it stands? I guess im wondering 
>> if this is the place to have the discussion Steve Hankins suggested:
>>
>> (Steve's original email)
>>
>> I'm seeking your thoughts here are on how the community can move 
>> rapidly towards the development of a written specification for the 
>> 2-level Sequence representation in OPeNDAP. (I'll refer to this below 
>> as the "DAP-2LS" conventions.)  It looks like the time may be right 
>> next year for pretty rapid growth in the use of OPeNDAP for conveying 
>> in-situ data.  Funding will probably be available for efforts along 
>> these lines.  A written specification is needed if the community is 
>> to take full advantage of these opportunities.
>>
>> Between the DAPPER server and GDS there are successful example 
>> implementations to work from.  Many of the details of the 
>> specification (e.g. encoding of time) can probably be borrowed from 
>> CF.  The emerging PyDAP work promises to bring relational databases 
>> into the fold, too.
>>
>> Clearly funding may be needed to entice someone to take on this 
>> task.  I believe that we can find a source of those funds in NOAA if 
>> we act quickly.  Even if only an initial, draft specification were to 
>> be developed at this time -- with community comments and discussion 
>> left to follow later -- this would be an important contribution.  
>> Multiple venues for community discussion of CF-related conventions 
>> are taking form.  One at Unidata (by September?) will host 
>> discussions about unstructured grid (finite element) conventions.  
>> Another at LLNL is getting started now to press forward with the CF 
>> conventions for more complex curvilinear grids.  With an initial 
>> specification of DAP-2LS conventions in hand I imagine we can entice 
>> someone to host a community discussion, since access to observations 
>> is important to everyone.
>>
>>   - steve
>>
>> P.S. I am just cheer-leading this effort. I do not expect be directly 
>> involved, myself.  The pay-off to the community -- advancing data 
>> interoperability, OPeNDAP, the Common Data Model, etc. etc. -- just 
>> seems too big to ignore. "
>>
>
> -- 
> --
>
> Steve Hankin, NOAA/PMEL -- Steven.C.Hankin at noaa.gov
> 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115-0070
> ph. (206) 526-6080, FAX (206) 526-6744