RE: But will anyone use them?

• To: netcdfgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: RE: But will anyone use them?
• From: HANKIN@xxxxxxxxxxxx
• Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1992 14:00:52 -0700 (PDT)

Hello David,

Regarding your comments:

>  After following much of this discussion on attribute conventions I am
>left wondering about something....   Many of these conventions would
>be a great idea if standardized.  However, what good will they be if 
>noone
>uses them?
> In my experience with netCDF data sets, I have NEVER seen a netCDF
>file created by a scientist type with Fortran code that has ANY
>attributes defined not even "UNITS" (computer scientist types working
>on netCDF packages excluded).  There's just too many extra subroutine
>calls to do this to be bothered with by most users. (I'm not faulting
>netCDF here, its just that many people usually don't bother with
>attributes.)

I don't think that in creating a standard there is any assumption made 
that everyone will adhere to it.  In general people will use programming 
tools in the manner of their own idiosyncratic, personal tastes.  The 
point of the standard is that when people NEED 
interchange/interoperability they have an agreed upon mechanism to 
achieve it.  For example, how much non-standard FORTRAN has been 
written?  Yet the standardized versions of FORTRAN have been invaluable 
when interoperability was a requirement.

> The only why I can see all these extra attributes being used is if the
>netCDF files are created by higher level packages that automatically
>add the extra metadata.

Well, as members of a "community" who are aware of the standards we can 
and should write conforming applications.  That will promote 
interoperability.

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