[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Java netcdf 2.2



Hi Don:

Donald Denbo wrote:
John,
I have just recently looked, for the first time, at the netcdf 2.2 libraries. I immediately noticed that this version is not upward compatible from the previous version (2.1). Given the amount of time that will be required to port ncBrowse from netcdf 2.1 to netcdf 2.2 I'm curious how stable is the version 2.2 API? I note that it does say (alpha) so I'm a little reluctant to put the effort until the API has settled down.

The lower level, particularly ucar.nc2.NetcdfFile are related is pretty stable, though things are still moving around a _little_ bit. The upper levels ( like ucar.nc2.dt) are still going to change a lot.
Id say if you are just going to replace 2.1 functionality, it should be a 
reletively easy port.


Given that the conversion from 2.1 to 2.2 does require a re- coding of much of ncBrowse, I'm curious why you make only a minor version change when the API is quite different? The change from 2.1 to 2.2 seems greater to me that from version 1 to version 2 (at least there was an upgrade path there). I think calling it version 3.0 and creating nc3, etc, would allow a developers to keep a single netcdf library for development rather that keeping track of two incompatible libraries.

No good reason for where the version number is incrementing, just the usual 
history etc. Sort of like JDK 1.5 becomes 5.0 I guess. Anyway were kind of 
stuck with it for now.

John