<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Hi Simon,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">You bring up some good questions and I don't mind that you posted to ncl-talk.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Here are the answers to your two questions, and I'll provide some additional information below.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">----------------------<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">A1) The "contributed.ncl" functions and procedures that are documented here:</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"> <a href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/Contributed/">http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/Contributed/</a></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">are a set of routines written mostly by Dennis Shea with contributions by Adam Phillips and other NCL users. Dennis and Adam are associate scientists in NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Division and are not officially paid by the NCL project to develop these routines.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">However, the NCL team recognizes these routines as critical contributions to NCL and hence we work with Dennis and Adam to fully support them. This includes fixing bugs, updating documentation, and adding new functions as appropriate. </div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br class="">On occasion, we've added routines to this file that were contributed by users outside of NCAR. If these functions are listed in the above URL, then they are also supported by the NCL team.<br>
</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><div class="gmail_default"><b>Caveat</b>: there are many <i><b>undocumented</b></i> supplemental routines inside of "contributed.ncl". If they are not officially documented somewhere on the above URL, then that means they could change, disappear, or be renamed. We do not guarantee the backwards compatibility or continual existence of undocumented functions.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">A2) We are pretty strict about backwards-compatibility for "officially" documented routines.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">With the exception of special user-contributed scripts (mentioned below), all routines listed here:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br>
</div><div class="gmail_default" style><a href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/list_alpha.shtml">http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/list_alpha.shtml</a><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style><br></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style>are ones that we plan to keep forever, and are strict about keeping backwards compatibility. This means we don't change or reorder the arguments that are passed to the routine, or we don't suddenly return different values, say in a different units.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">There are many functions that we've provided better versions of, but unless there's a serious bug or some other reason not to keep it, we keep the older functions around. We usually document these as "deprecated" on the function pages. As an example, see "ut_calendar" which we deprecated and now encourage people to use "cd_calendar":</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><a href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/Built-in/ut_calendar.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/Built-in/ut_calendar.shtml</a></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">
----------------------</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Special note about other user-contributed routines:</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">
For user-contributed routines that we want to include with NCL but can't promise support, we use a different method. We put these in a directory called "$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/contrib" as NCL scripts that you have to load individually.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">We do document some of these routines in our giant alphabetical list of routines for convenience, but we usually try to get the contributing person to volunteer to provide support if possible.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">To see a list of the different types of NCL scripts that we have, and the routines that are documented in each of these, go to:</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">
<a href="http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/list_type.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/list_type.shtml</a><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">
With the exception of the very last one called "User contributed scripts", which are the routines that go in the "contrib" directory I just described, all of the functions and procedures listed in the given links are supported by us.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">--Mary</div>
<div class="gmail_default"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 3:34 AM, Simon Read <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:s.read@reading.ac.uk" target="_blank">s.read@reading.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear NCL team and users,<br>
<br>
I'm new NCL user, working in academia, who is evalauting a software package that is largely based on NCL.<br>
<br>
This post is about the culture of NCL rather than a technical issue, but I hope you don't mind me posting it here. Specifically, but I have a couple of questions about present and future support for contributed code, i.e. those functions and procedures loaded from:<br>
<br>
$NCARG_ROOT/lib/ncarg/nclscripts/csm/contributed.ncl<br>
<br>
Q1) I'm sure the contributed code is very reliable, but in the unlikely event a bug was identified, would it be the responsibility of the NCL development team to fix it, or the contributing author?<br>
<br>
Q2) Is it the intention to keep all the existing contributed functions and procedures in future NCL distributions for the foreseeable future? Put conversely, may some contributed functions and procedures be left out of future NCL versions, e.g. due to the presence of better alternatives, or incompatibility with other code in the new version?<br>
<br>
Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give.<br>
<br>
Kind regards,<br>
Simon<br>
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