NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
Current content can be found at unidata.ucar.edu.
To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
Current content can be found at unidata.ucar.edu.
To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
On 4/7/2014 5:23 PM, Jeff McWhirter wrote:
Hi all,I've been staying out of this discussion since I don't use the IDV or the TDS anymore but John's note raises some red flags that I think Unidata and its governance committees should address.The rollout on friday hit a few snags, compounded by me being sick so I couldnt respond quickly.Considering what Unidata has gone through in the past with losing key personnel and the impact that that has had on its products it is disconcerting that one of its core products is still tied so closely with an individual developer. I don't fault the developer - John is incredibly dedicated and works very hard - rather I fault management and its continuing inability to address these (albeit difficult) issues.You might think "Why didnt we find these problems before releasing?" Because we dont have a separate test team, like commercial software release cycle does. We constantly improve our testing, but plenty gets past us. We rely on the users to find the last set of bugs. And its all but impossible to get users to try beta software. Fact of life.This is a cop-out. There are 5 engineers who work on THREDDS (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/committees/usercom/2014Apr/agenda.html) and 2 engineers that work on the IDV. The TDS has been in production for over a decade. These were *not* edge case errors. They were errors in core functionality and should have never gotten into production.-Jeff
Hi Jeff: Thanks for your thoughts, and your perspective.There were 2 defects that would normally have been caught and fixed within a few hours, in normal circumstances. The inability of some to tolerate a few days of intermitant downtime highlights the tension between thredds.ucar.edu as an operational server and as a vehicle for continuous innovation.
The TDS is complex and possibly over ambitious software for the size of Unidata, which has about 13 software enginers and about 15 software systems and projects. The TDS is providing access to large collections of GRIB files in a way that no other software in the world can do. This has occupied more of my time than I wanted, to the neglect of other issues; in retrospect Im not sure if GRIB is worth it. But I think we have the bulk of it done, so we'll see how it rolls out.
Meanwhile, we feel like we have some solid ideas on how to improve things going forward. Thanks everyone for your continued support and feedback.
John
idvusers archives: