[NeXus-committee] Questionnaire: answer from FRM II

[j.wuttke]

Dear all:

* Facility name

FRM II, including instruments of Forschungszentrum Jülich and of other institutes

* Number of files/beamlines/instruments producing NeXus files

very few, most probably 0

* Number of files/beamlines/instruments producing NeXus files in 2 years time

1 more (implemented by detector manufacturer, no idea whether this will be
         valid, portable NeXus, or only compliant in form)

* Barriers found for increasing NeXus use

- instrument scientists:
   - won't change a running system
   - don't see benefit
   - don't know how to boil down NeXus to a useable specification
   - have heard that the main potential advantage, portability, is by no means guaranteed
   - want human-readable ASCII data

- I as head of computing group:
   - don't understand NeXus, in spite of many attempts to read the documentation
   - find the documentation fragmented, full of duplications, verbous on details,
     but shallow as for the basic concepts
   - have no clue how to organize the social process to generate a widely accepted
     data-format specification for one class of instruments
   - doubt that data exchange at raw-data level will be of much use - instruments are
     too different
   - don't see demand for reduced data in NeXus format
   - am not aware of a generally accepted NeXus specification for reduced data
   - would like to have standardized metadata, but don't know how to gather them
     from notoriously non-compliant instrument users
   - fear that the very limited success of NeXus after so many years of hard efforts
     is an indication that there is a deep conceptual problem

* Priorities for the NeXus community should be

- evaluate concepts, and put to sleep what is not generally useful
- rewrite documentation to be brief, simple, and coherent, and to prove that the
   project is conceptually clear and mature
- agree within 1/2 year on a white paper that unambiguously defines what NeXus means
   for one class of instruments, then start a coordinated implementation campaign
- if that doesn't work, declare final failure

Sorry for being again so bold in all my obvious ignorance,
I am looking forward to meet you in September and to learn better,

Joachim


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Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
52425 Juelich
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich
Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher
Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem (Vorsitzender),
Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt,
Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt
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