[QUANTITY]: gather requirements for quantity model

[Brian Thomas]

On Tuesday 28 October 2003 03:34 pm, Patrick Dowler wrote:
> In my opinion, this is exactly what we already did over the summer and the
> requirements, design issues, etc are all nicely buried in the mail archives
> of the dm mailing list. 

	Well, if this is truely the case, can you submit then the ones that you agree
	with? Part of the problem in this project is that not everyone is 'listening'
	to the mailing list (or each other) at the same time. I see a wide disparity (sometimes)
	in what people feel these quantities are being used for. In fact, as our private
	ongoing discussion has shown me, the two of us have divergent points of 
	view about the scope of the quantity so the issue of "what is a quantity" 
	hasnt been settled.


> Maybe I'm a total heretic, but it is not necessary
> and often a waste of time dojng the full RS, CD, DD process for something
> which can be deduced from basic principles.

	My experience in working with teams of programmers is the opposite of this.
	Its never easy to make more than 2 people come to agreement on anything.
	Too often, without a well-defined process, its like herding cats (whether deciding
	on where lunch will be, or a new API for quantity as we are doing). We need some
	unifiying "vision" to truely move forward. 


> This is NOT a difficult problem as long as we refrain from redefining the 
> words of the the english language willy-nilly, ie the word Quantity. It has a
> fairly well focused and accepted meaning in the world of computer science 
> and we would be fools to stray from the actual meaning of the word.

	Well, we arent just doing computer science though. As the very least, we are
	talking about "physical" quantities like "flux", "wavelength" in addition to
	CS quantities like "set" or "value" or "datacube".
 
						=b.t.


-- 

  * Dr. Brian Thomas 

  * Code 630.1 
  * Goddard Space Flight Center NASA

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