Hello all,
I just wanted to jump in regarding the split after 4.1.3.
On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 1:07 PM, Gus Correa <gus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 11/06/2014 02:06 PM, Chris Barker wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Nick Papior Andersen
>> <nickpapior@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:nickpapior@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>
>> (…)
The original idea behind splitting the libraries, as I understand it, was
to make it easier to release updates and bug fixes without having to
release a new version of every interface. This way, a critical bug fix in
netcdf-c would not have to wait for a bug fix in netcdf-fortran, or vice
versa. This style of distributing the libraries is more cumbersome if you
continue to look at netcdf as a monolithic set of interfaces, but if you
consider it to be a set of independent interfaces, it makes a lot more
sense.
The actual *releases* from 4.3.0 onward on github contain the configure
script and other autotools-generated files. The code in the development
branch does not, as there isn’t much need to track changes made to these
files. They can be generated on the fly with autoreconf -if as needed by
anybody working with unstable development code. Which you are of course
welcome to do.
CMake integration is also in place for the C and Fortran interfaces; it is
still pending (I believe) for the C++ interface, but will be included there
as well. One of the strengths of CMake is the fact that it is so much more
cross-platform capable than autotools, which is why it’s seeing such strong
adoption rates amongst software developers. We’re using CMake to allow for
easier compilation on Windows in an MSVC environment, and are not planning
on abandoning autotools in the near future :).
Another benefit of adopting CMake is that it has let us move away from cron
jobs and perl scripts to a more formal, modern Continuous Integration
testing environment, CDash. The netcdf public CDash dashboards may be found
here:
- http://my.cdash.org/index.php?project=netcdf-c
- http://my.cdash.org/index.php?project=netcdf-fortran
Coupled with tools like Virtualbox and Vagrant, this has made our
cross-platform testing environment *very* portable and *very* extendable.
As an example of this, it took me about 20 minutes total, earlier this
week, to add 32/64-bit versions of the latest fedora and ubuntu linux
distributions to our testbed.
I don’t mean to derail the conversation, but I did want to make sure folks
knew that the autotools scripts are still in place for our releases through
github, or those releases downloaded from our ftp site. I would be very
hesitant to make such a broad change without any sort of warning :).
-Ward
Nevertheless, after about NetcCDF version 4.1.3,
> the three main bindings (C, Fortran, C++) were separated,
> and no longer distributed from a single tarball.
> They don't seem to have the same building framework with
> Gnu Autotools either.
> There is some stuff on Git, but not nearly as easy to handle
> as it used to be.
> The release numbers are now different (inconsistent?)
> across these three bindings also.
> Using CMake perhaps, instead of Gnu AutoTools also?
>
> Maybe there is a rationale for that, but I don't quite understand why.
>
> Anyway, this made it harder to build, keep, and use a consistent
> and up-to-date group of bindings in Linux machines,
> and also made it harder to cater for Fortran users/programmers.
> Even Linux distribution packages lagged behind.
>
> That is something that I think Unidata and the NetCDF group
> could/should look into with more interest,
> and hopefully return to the good old days of a single
> and comprehensive tarball with C, Fortran, and C++ bindings,
> plus an easy to use "configure;make;make install" setup.
> This may not cover Windows and Macs, but will be help a lot the
> Linux users.
>
> My two cents of biased opinion.
>
> Thank you,
> Gus Correa
> Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
>
>
> In this regard, I wish
>
>
>> --
>>
>> Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
>> Oceanographer
>>
>> Emergency Response Division
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>>
>> Chris.Barker@xxxxxxxx <mailto:Chris.Barker@xxxxxxxx>
>>
>>
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