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The quest for tentative approval.

• To: imgCIF Bulletin Board <imgcif-l@bnl.gov>
• Subject: The quest for tentative approval.
• From: Robert Sweet <sweet@lsx12n.nsls.bnl.gov>
• Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 12:14:32 -0500 (EST)
• In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.96.1000223121219.12303V-100000@lsx12n.nsls.bnl.gov>

It's time for action.

There has been some traffic recently among some of us about the prospects
for further development of the imgCIF/CBF idea, put in tangible form on
Herb Bernstein's web page: 
http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/software/CBF/doc/cbf_definition_rev.html

It appears that the work we have all done on CBF and imgCIF is starting to
bear fruit, and to be used in real software.  I'm easily persuaded that it
is time to make what we have done more "official", and Herb and others
clearly have the attention of the COMCIFS within the IUCr.  If we take the
next step and ask for approval, others may start to employ it.  The huge
advantage of this is the this test of fire will begin the process of
refining the CBF and imgCIF definitions.  Therefore, unless there are
strenuous objections from the readers of this bulletin board, in the next
few days we will submit what we have done to COMCIFS for "tentative
approval".

To quote from I. David Brown: 

  "Tentative approval is the first stage towards the final approval that
occurs when the community has had a chance to discover any obvious defects
in the dictionary after, say, 12 - 18 months.  Thus tentative approval
does not preclude changes being made in the dictionary later as a result
of experience gained (this caveat appears in any tentatively approved
dictionary) but it puts the draft on the official Comcifs dictionary list.
It is the intent of tentative approval to give the draft official status,
thus encouraging the writing of software.  I imagine that any changes
needed before final approval could be made in a way that ensures upward
compatibility, particularly if the software writers have already invested
a lot of effort."

This seems to be a sensible way to go forward.  I thank Herb and Paul
Ellis especially for the effort they have expended.  We await comments
from this community. 

Sincerely,
Bob

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	Robert M. Sweet			E-Dress: SWEET@BNL.GOV 
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  • Re: The quest for tentative approval. (Yves Epelboin)

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