[ncl-talk] Important announcement regarding the future of NCL

Wed Feb 6 21:06:29 MST 2019

Hi Mary:

Thanks.

A most pertinent question: how hard will it be for someone who has worked
hard to "know" NCL to transition to Python.

Also, keep in mind that I (and others) have written 10s of programs in NC,
and these would need to be rewritten.

Barry

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 12:59 AM Mary Haley <haley at ucar.edu> wrote:

> Hi Barry,
>
> I encourage folks to read the report, as it covers in detail why the
> decision to transition to Python, and what Python brings to the table:
>
>
> http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Pivot_to_Python/NCL_Pivot_to_Python_Report_and_Roadmap.pdf
>
> There's a section "Why Python" (starts on page 5) that explains some of
> the reasoning behind this decision.
>
> Here's the pertinent part of that section:
>
> *Why Python?*
> Python has gained widespread acceptance by universities and research
> organizations around the world and is being adopted as the programming
> language of choice for scientific computing. This is evidenced by several
> factors: 1) the availability of quality scientific Python modules via the
> SciPy ecosystem, 2) the continued and growing popularity of the annual
> SciPy conference, now in its 17th year, 3) the availability of books on
> Python for scientists, and 4) the increasing number of scientific graduate
> students who are learning Python in college as an open source alternative
> to other non-free software like IDL and MATLAB. In September 2018—for the
> first time in history—Python entered the TIOBE index top 3 (www.tiobe.com),
> a measure of popularity of programming languages based on search engine
> results.
>
> Python has picked up rapid steam in the geoscientific community as well.
> For the last eight years the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting
> has hosted a popular and well-attended symposium on the “Advances in
> Modeling and Analysis Using Python”. NCAR is a major partner in the Pangeo (
> pangeo.io) community, an NSF EarthCube funded effort that provides an
> “open source scientific Python ecosystem for ocean / atmosphere / land /
> climate science” and is focused on providing tools and support for handling
> petabyte-scale datasets on HPC and cloud platforms. There are hundreds of
> scientific Python modules that provide domain-specific functionality for
> reading/writing data, computational analyses, and visualization. The
> benefit of these individual packages is that they are usually specialized
> for a specific domain or class of problems, thus filling a critical need
> that a more general-purpose language cannot.
>
> The Python language itself provides rich language features that NCL does
> not have, including optional arguments, a robust interactive interface,
> generators, exception handling, and built-in debugging and testing. The
> Python community has a rapidly growing base of scientific software
> developers that are able to address the growing needs of the geoscientific
> community much faster than we can in the areas of scalability, interfaces
> to other languages like R for statistical calculations, and support for a
> wider range of complex data formats. By replacing the NCL language with the
> Python language, the NCL user base will instantly gain access to these
> features, and we will be able to benefit from the already vibrant and
> active open development Python community. Python itself has been open
> developed since October 2000.
> Last but not least, it is becoming harder to hire developers who want to
> work on a programming language with a narrow focus, versus a highly visible
> and mainstream language like Python.
>
> I hope this addresses your questions.
>
> --Mary
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 7:29 AM Barry Lynn <barry.h.lynn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello Mary:
>>
>> Could you please help us understand what critical features are missing
>> from NCL but present in python so that we better understand why we should
>> switch.
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Barry
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 3:23 PM Mary Haley <haley at ucar.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear NCL Users,
>>>
>>> This letter is in regard to the future of NCL, following NCAR's decision
>>> to move to Python as the scripting language of choice for future
>>> visualization and analysis software development. Note that this decision
>>> targets new development, leaving existing NCL functionality intact.
>>>
>>> NCAR is committed to supporting data analysis software for atmospheric,
>>> oceanic, and climate science research. However, decreases in budgets and
>>> staff, coupled with the enormous functionality that Python brings to the
>>> earth sciences, has made it difficult to justify continuing new development
>>> on NCL. Python has seen rapid adoption by the earth science community and
>>> duplicates much of NCL's functionality, while adding critical features that
>>> NCL doesn't offer.
>>>
>>> Based on recommendations from NSF, CISL and NCL advisory panels, the
>>> results of the NCL survey, and months of evaluating different strategies
>>> for the future development and support of NCL, NCAR has arrived at these
>>> major decisions, effective immediately:
>>>
>>>    - Python will be adopted as the scripting language platform for
>>>    future visualization and analysis development.
>>>    - NCL's core language and file I/O will be placed into maintenance
>>>    mode.
>>>    - NCL's graphics will have continued development through PyNGL
>>>    <http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu>***.
>>>    - NCL's unique and critical computational routines will be ported to
>>>    an as-yet-to-be-named Python package.
>>>    - PyNIO <http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu/Nio.shtml>*** will be placed into
>>>    maintenance mode.
>>>    - Development will continue on WRF-Python
>>>    <https://wrf-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>***.
>>>    - All software, including NCL and PyNIO, will be moved to a more
>>>    open development software platform to allow for continued community
>>>    development.
>>>
>>> *** PyNIO, PyNGL, and WRF-Python are Python modules built on top of NCL
>>> libraries, and are developed and supported by the NCL team.
>>>
>>>
>>> NCAR recognizes the significance of these changes. It will take time for
>>> NCL users to transition to Python, and some users may not want to make the
>>> switch at all. As such, we want to stress that NCL is not going away. NCL
>>> users will be able to download NCL and execute their scripts for the
>>> foreseeable future.
>>>
>>> To help users who want to begin transitioning their graphical NCL
>>> scripts to PyNGL right away, Karin Meier-Fleischer of DKRZ has written a
>>> first draft of an "NCL-to-Python Transition Guide
>>> <http:///www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Manuals/NCL_to_Python/Transition_Guide_NCL_PyNGL.pdf>"
>>> accompanied by a suite of NCL and Python examples
>>> <http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/NCL_to_Python/>.  Additionally,
>>> we will soon begin converting a subset of the NCL application examples to
>>> Python, using PyNGL <http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu/> and matplotlib
>>> <https://matplotlib.org>, and will continue to answer questions on the
>>> ncl-talk <http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk> email
>>> list, but scaling back in order to start helping with Python questions.
>>>
>>> For a detailed report and roadmap on the "pivot to Python" decision and
>>> transition plan, please read the "NCL and the Pivot to Python:
>>> Discussion and Roadmap
>>> <http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Pivot_to_Python/NCL_Pivot_to_Python_Report_and_Roadmap.pdf>"
>>> report, which can be found on a special page we created containing other
>>> supporting documents <http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Pivot_to_Python/>
>>> .
>>>
>>> The NCL team welcomes your input on this decision. We also want to know
>>> if there are other ways we can help ease the transition to Python and
>>> encourage users to become more active contributors through open
>>> development. Please use this GitHub issue
>>> <https://github.com/NCAR/ncl/issues/64> to submit questions or comments
>>> so we can keep the discussion public.
>>>
>>> *NCL Team:*
>>> John Clyne (acting group head)
>>> Rick Brownrigg
>>> Mary Haley
>>> Kevin Hallock
>>> Bill Ladwig
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ncl-talk mailing list
>>> ncl-talk at ucar.edu
>>> List instructions, subscriber options, unsubscribe:
>>> http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Barry H. Lynn, Ph.D
>> Senior Associate Scientist, Lecturer,
>> The Institute of the Earth Science,
>> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
>> Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
>> Tel: 972 547 231 170
>> Fax: (972)-25662581
>>
>> C.E.O, Weather It Is, LTD
>> Weather and Climate Focus
>> http://weather-it-is.com
>> Jerusalem, Israel
>> Local: 02 930 9525
>> Cell: 054 7 231 170
>> Int-IS: x972 2 930 9525
>>
>>

-- 
Barry H. Lynn, Ph.D
Senior Associate Scientist, Lecturer,
The Institute of the Earth Science,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Tel: 972 547 231 170
Fax: (972)-25662581

C.E.O, Weather It Is, LTD
Weather and Climate Focus
http://weather-it-is.com
Jerusalem, Israel
Local: 02 930 9525
Cell: 054 7 231 170
Int-IS: x972 2 930 9525
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.ucar.edu/pipermail/ncl-talk/attachments/20190207/4ab4a75b/attachment.html>