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Re: [ddlm-group] Latest draft specification

Even though I do not agree with many of the restrictions in this document, 
I urge starting discussion of these changes on the various community-wide
discussion lists.  I suggest announcements to pdb-l, ccp4bb and ccp4-dev
lists.

     -- Herbert

=====================================================
  Herbert J. Bernstein, Professor of Computer Science
    Dowling College, Kramer Science Center, KSC 121
         Idle Hour Blvd, Oakdale, NY, 11769

                  +1-631-244-3035
                  [email protected]
=====================================================

On Mon, 5 Jul 2010, James Hester wrote:

> Brian has now posted the document.� You can find it at:
> http://www.iucr.org/resources/cif/spec/cif-2-development
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 2:19 PM, James Hester <[email protected]> wrote:
>       I am happy to proceed as Brian suggests.� As far actually preparing a draft goes, on May 7 John B kindly
>       provided me with an editable version of the original draft specification with those suggested changes of
>       his that were uncontroversial already included.� I have updated that draft making the following specific
>       changes:
>
>       1. Change the 2048-byte limit to a 2048-character limit
>       2. Incorporate XML-type newline handling
>       3. Refer to UTF-8 as the designated encoding for files conformant to the specification
>       4. State that U+FEFF is not part of the allowed character set (ie. would be everywhere a syntax error).� I
>       include this as the voting on this point, such as it was, gave a slight majority to option 2(a) over option
>       2(c)(ii).
>       5. Disallow Unicode non-characters.� I have *not* dealt with the issue of disallowing non-printing
>       characters.� As the draft currently stands, non-printing characters are acceptable.�
>
>       The updated draft is in Brian's hands, and I'm hoping he will post it to the IUCr website shortly for your
>       comment.
>
>       James.
>
>       On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 6:25 PM, Brian McMahon <[email protected]> wrote:
>             Colleagues
>
>             Like Buridan's ass we are starving to death between the equally
>             enticing mound of hay that is UTF-8 and the smorgasbord of mixed
>             vegetables offered by multiple encodings.
>
>             I suggest that this group complete a *draft* CIF2 specification
>             that describes (if necessary) specific character allusions in
>             terms of a canonical UTF-8 encoding, and states that UTF-8 is the
>             designated encoding for files conformant to the specification.
>
>             Post the completed draft in the first instance to the cif-developers
>             list (since that is supposed to the the most relevant target audience),
>             but certainly to other lists at the same time if folk think that would
>             be productive. By all means accompany the release with a commentary on
>             the difficulties we have faced over the encoding issue; by all means
>             implement a survey and analyse the results to assess community demand
>             for an upward revision of the draft - but let us give people something
>             concrete to begin with, and challenge them actively to protest if the
>             proposal will impede their work.
>
>             Note that this proposal doesn't necessarily reflect a personal
>             preference for a single mandatory encoding - I still cannot
>             decide which I "prefer". But if the suggested draft is published,
>             I will not vote against it unless I suddenly see clearly a real
>             problem that it would throw up in the way of any applications I
>             would envisage writing. I would hope "the community" would respond
>             in similar vein, so that stated objections would both represent real
>             difficulties and help to define the environments giving rise to these
>             real difficulties.
>
>             Best wishes
>             Brian
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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