Participating in the NetCDF Community
Russ Rew
NetCDF Annual Update
2012-10-26
Why Participate?
- To help extend netCDF to meet an important need
- To fix a bug that affects you or your users
- To help the science community
- To participate in a successful software product
What Can We Collaborate On?
- Bug fixes, performance improvements to the netCDF libraries and tools.
- New features for the libraries when they fit netCDF development plans and mission.
- Other software/standards efforts if they fit within the Unidata mission.
- We have more work than we know what to do with. See Jira site for some ideas.
With Whom?
- University Meteorology/Earth Science researchers and students.
- Large science agencies like NASA, NOAA, NCEP.
- Scientific software developers around the world.
Where Do We Collaborate?
- NetCDF World HQ is in sunny Boulder, Colorado, at the Unidata Program Center.
- Unidata is always present in some form at the AGU, AMS, and EGU meetings. NetCDF team members are not always present.
- We also seem to attend various Washington D.C. Meetings about once a year.
- For large users we sometimes do on-site workshops (NASA, NCEP).
- Anywhere, via the internet!
How Can We Collaborate?
- You can build beta releases and send the results to support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu
- You can send us code/documentation fixes.
- You can actively contribute to the netCDF mailing list, answering questions.
- You can develop an API for your favorite language, or a tool.
- You can contribute tests.
How to Beta Test NetCDF
- Beta releases (and release candidates) are announced on the netCDF mailing list.
- Build and test, sending results to support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu.
- Put the version you are testing in the email subject line.
- Send an email if it worked, telling us.
- If it didn't work, also send configure/make output, and config.log file.
Notes on Providing Code
- Start from a svn checkout/update, or today's daily snapshot. Code changes quickly sometimes!
- Diffs are fine.
- Send everything to support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu to ensure it gets tracked and not forgotten.
Notes on Providing Code
- No platform-specific optimizations without proper autotools integration.
- Code is closely reviewed may not be used.
- Follow examples of tests.
Providing Tests
- Best way to demonstrate a bug is to send in a simple test that isolates the bug.
- Look at the tst_SOMETHING.c files in nc_test, nc_test4 for examples.
- Test code should not accept command line parameters, and should not depend on human reading of output.
- Return 0 for success, anything else for failure.
Ways and Means
- NetCDF planning now takes place on jira site: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/jira
- Code is available from subversion repository: http://svn.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/trunk
- Check-ins are restricted to Unidata.
- Send code diffs to: support-netcdf@unidata.ucar.edu