[ESP] Invitation to next ESP Meeting

[Benno Blumenthal]

On Fri, 2003-07-04 at 07:59, Bryan Lawrence wrote:
> Folks
> 
> I think Glenn's provided a list of issues which most of us would agree are 
> important in one way or another. However, I suspect there are too many of 
> them for a two day meeting, and we would end up with a show and tell, and 
> we'd all walk away, with no progress on the issues and no real momentum with 
> which to go forward.  Meanwhile, I'll follow up on some of Glenn's issues in 
> another email.
> 
> Do we have any consensus about what this meeting is for? My feeling is that 
> this meeting is about portals. I would rather we concentrated on what 
> technology we have available for portals, what the portals should be doing, 
> who is doing what, and how we can interoperate etc. I'd be happy to propose 
> some more specific items for an agenda if that's a consensus opinion about 
> what this meeting should achieve.
> 
> Bryan

While your point is well-taken that Glenn has provided an extensive list
of issues that might be difficult to handle in a short meeting, that
fact remains that the best way (in my opinion) to create data portals is
to solve the data organization/distribution problems that Glenn lists. 
Once the data is well-organized/documented and on readily accessible
servers such as DODS/THREDDS -- any corresponding client is a data
portal.   I already have such a web-based client
(iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu) whose entire interface is derived from the
structure presented in a THREDDS document (and the subdocuments/datasets
that are referenced), and there are (or will be soon) others.

On the other hand, the reverse is not true: simply creating a web-based
interface will not get us the data interoperability needed.   And an
human-operated interface to poorly organized/documented data does not
get one very far.

Benno


-- 
Dr. M. Benno Blumenthal          benno@iri.columbia.edu
International Research Institute for climate prediction
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Lamont Campus, Palisades NY 10964-8000   (845) 680-4450