COMCIFS adoption of DDL1
John Westbrook jwest at rcsb.rutgers.eduSat Oct 15 09:56:14 BST 2005
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Hi David, I support the proposal to establish a group to maintain DDL1. I nominate Brian to lead the working group. Regards, John David Brown wrote: > The CIF dictionaries are written using a Dictionary Definition Language > (DDL) which is described in a DDL dictionary. Both the DDL- and > CIF-dictionaries use the same DDL and syntax so that is should be > possible to read any of the dictionaries using the same software.. > > Currently there are two versions of DDL in use. DDL1 is used for the > coreCIF and related dictionaries while DDL2 is used for the mmCIF and > related dictionaries. When these various dictionaries were originally > designed it was anticipated that a program designed to validate a CIF > could also be used to validate CIF- and DDL-dictionaries. However, > since most of the programming effort has been directed towards the > manipulation of CIFs, it is only quite recently that anyone has taken up > the challenge of writing software to validate CIF- and DDL-dictionaries > against the appropriate version of DDL. In the course of this work it > became apparent that DDL1 contains some errors that make such validation > impossible. The errors are easy to corrected, but there is no > individual or organization that has the responsibility for managing DDL1 > or the authority to approve any changes. DDL1 is an orphan even though > it underpins the whole CIF project. > > DDL1 was written by Hall and Cook (J. Chem. Info. Comp. Sci. (1995) 35, > 819-825), but they have moved on and are not interested in managing the > earlier versions of DDL. At the COMCIFS closed meeting in Florence > there was general agreement that, because an authoritative definition of > DDL1 is essential to the functioning of many of the CIF dictionaries, > COMCIFS should take responsibility for its maintenance. That decision > will need to be formally ratified by the voting members of COMCIFS, but > before I ask for that vote, I am circulating the proposal to members of > the COMCIFS Discussion List for their comment. > > The Florence meeting of COMCIFS also endorsed the idea of moving towards > a new (third) version of DDL (star_DDL) that would be compatible with > CIF archives written in either DDL1 or DDL2, but that would in addition > benefit from what we have learned over the past fifteen years and > consequently would result in a much more powerful version of CIF. > > One might ask why it is necessary to patch up DDL1 if it is likely to be > superceded by star_DDL. There are a couple of reasons. Firstly, there > is much work to be done before star_DDL is ready for general use, and > dictionaries written using earlier DDLs will likely continue in use for > many years in parallel with star_DDL. Secondly, the experience gained > by developing advanced software for DDL1 will be useful in developing > software for star_DDL. > > If you have any comments on this proposal, can you please post them on > the COMCIFS Discussion List by Replying to this message during the next > four weeks. After that time I will ask the voting members of COMCIFS to > formally adopt the proposal that COMCIFS take responsibility for the > management of DDL1. > > David Brown > Chair of COMCIFS > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > comcifs mailing list > comcifs at iucr.org > http://scripts.iucr.org/mailman/listinfo/comcifs -- ****************************************************************** John Westbrook, Ph.D. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology 610 Taylor Road Piscataway, NJ 08854-8087 e-mail: jwest at rcsb.rutgers.edu Ph: (732) 445-4290 Fax: (732) 445-4320 ******************************************************************
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