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Re: [Cif2-encoding] How we wrap this up

On Thursday, September 23, 2010 5:46 AM, SIMON WESTRIP wrote:

>1. Herbert's 'as for CIF1 proposal with UTF8 in place of ASCII' recently posted here and to COMCIFS.
>2. Herbert's 'as for CIF1 proposal with UTF8 in place of ASCII', together with Brian's *recommendations*
>3. UTF8-only as in the original draft
>4. UTF8 + UTF16
>5. UTF8, UTF16 + "local"
>
>These can be broken down to:
>
>'any encoding' (1, 2, and 5)
>
>'specified encoding' (3 and 4)
>
>Note I put 5 in the 'any encoding' category as I think 'local' could be interpretted as any encoding.

I agree that 'local' could be interpreted as "any encoding", but I choose to view it as "context-dependent".  Thus a file that is CIF-conformant on one computer might not be CIF-conformant on another.  Some will find that unsatisfactory.  In my view, however, it is the best interpretation of CIF1's provisions; its purpose is thus to ensure that *all* well-formed CIF1 files are also well-formed CIF2 files (a context-dependent question).  Lest I appear to overstate the case, I acknowledge that the UTF8-only and UTF-8 + UTF-16 proposals would have the result that a large majority of well-formed CIF1 files are also well-formed CIF2 files.  The variations of Herb’s proposal probably also make all well-formed CIF1 files well-formed CIF2 files, but I disfavor them on different grounds (mostly that they are too open to differing interpretations).

[...]

>In either case, a degree of work will be required to accommodate user practice and the legacy of CIF1.

I think the entire question reduces to which accommodations for the CIF1 legacy are assured by CIF2 vs. which will constitute non-standard extensions.  I don’t think that individual responses, from Chester for example, are likely to depend much on which option is adopted, but I do think the overall consistency of responses will be affected.  Thus I favor precision of the specification and coverage of the likely uses, in hope of achieving the greatest consistency of response.

I doubt this has swayed anyone's opinion, so please consider it an advance explanation for my upcoming vote (inasmuch as I rely on James's previous assurance that voting rights in this context are not restricted to COMCIFS members).


Best Regards,

John
--
John C. Bollinger, Ph.D.
Department of Structural Biology
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital


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