Re: wrapping fortran intrinsics

From: Jeff Whitaker (jsw AT XXXXXX)
Date: Fri Apr 05 2002 - 05:59:19 MST

  • Next message: Jeff Whitaker: "shared objects on OS X"

    On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Mary Haley wrote:

    Mary:

    >
    > Hi Jeff,
    >
    > Thanks for sharing your comments. We always appreciate them.
    >
    > > BTW: What's the reason that NCAR doesn't open the NCL source? After all,
    > > the binaries are given away for free.
    > > .
    > > .
    > > .
    >
    > We plan to release it someday, but another reason we are not releasing
    > it right now is because it is a difficult package to build. At this
    > point, it would probably create a lot of grief for users trying to
    > build it. The difficulty partially stems from the number of external
    > packages that are required (netCDF, HDF, Spherepack, LAPACK, BLAS,
    > flex). You need to build all of these before you can build NCL. Also,
    > the fact that you can import shared objects into NCL adds another
    > level of difficulty in compilation. You have to understand how shared
    > objects work, and built the "ncl" executable with the appropriate
    > options.

    I'm happy to hear that it's in the plans. I think the build process will
    actually get easier if you open the source - this is the first thing
    people will work on and contribute to. As long as the binaries are
    available, 95% of the people will use those - it's only the geeks (like
    me) who will try to build from source. My experience as a fink developer
    porting unix software to OS X is that open source software is now much
    easier to install on OS X than it was 6 months ago, largely because of the
    patches we have sent upstream.

    BTW: I'll be working on getting loadable shared modules ("bundles" on
    OSX) working in NCL - I'll let you know when I have something that works.

    >
    > We always appreciate user input. If other users are longing for NCL
    > source code, don't hesitate to let us know (via ncl-talk). This may
    > push the issue through faster.

    I don't know of any right now, but I'm sure you're user base will expand
    significantly when this does happen.

    Thanks for responding, and for providing this great tool for the
    community.

    -Jeff

    -- 
    Jeffrey S. Whitaker         Phone  : (303)497-6313
    Meteorologist               FAX    : (303)497-6449
    NOAA/OAR/CDC  R/CDC1        Email  : jsw AT cdc.noaa.gov
    325 Broadway                Web    : www.cdc.noaa.gov/~jsw
    Boulder, CO, USA 80303-3328 Office : Skaggs Research Cntr 1D-124
    



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