Re: Schedule decision

• To: netcdf-hdf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Re: Schedule decision
• From: Ed Hartnett <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 13:41:28 -0600

Quincey Koziol <koziol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Hi all,
>     I've been working on revising groups in HDF5 files (to allow for creating
> groups which track creation order, among other things) and its become obvious
> to me that my first attempt at implementing the indices required will not be
> a good long-term solution.  Switching horses midstream could delay getting the
> HDF5 1.8.0 beta release by ~6 weeks if I change the indexing implementation
> right now.  I can, however, continue with the flawed index implementation I
> currently have and build up to most of the API changes that would be required
> and then go back and revise the guts of the library to use a better data
> structure on disk for storing the indices required.
>
>     This would allow outside applications/libraries (like netCDF-4) to mostly
> stabilize their code on the new API while I went back and reworked internal
> things.  This has several trade-offs that I can think of:
>       A - It gets a [reasonably] stable API to testers somewhat sooner.
>       B - Its going to take longer, because I'll have to re-do some work.
>       C - Files created during the "transition period" will _never_ be able to
>             be read by any other version of the HDF5 library - they must be
>             discarded by testers.  
>
>     If we've got enough flexibility in our schedules, I would prefer to avoid
> doing the re-work and just get things right first.  But, since there is an
> alternate plan that could work, I thought I would raise the issue.
>
>     What does everyone think?
>         Quincey
>
>

If the files produced by the temporary method of indexing are going to
be unreadable in the future, that's not a good thing.

Ed
-- 
Ed Hartnett  -- ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Schedule decision
    • From: Quincey Koziol

• References:
  • Schedule decision
    • From: Quincey Koziol