[Nexus] Desire for a more rigorous NeXus standard

[Mark Koennecke]

Dear Tom,

On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Tom Kozlowski wrote:

> The 8 LANSCE instruments running with the our data acquisition system
> archive data using the NeXus standard.  Some of our instrument users wish to
> 
> Now that the NeXus community has reached this point of maturity, it is a
> good time to refine and more formally document the NeXus standard,
> minimizing ambiguities and making sure it meets the needs of implementers
> and users.  The meta-DTD format currently on the NeXus website is a good
> step in this direction, but more is needed.  In the near future, we would
> like to see a formal document produced that unambiguously defines the NeXus
> standard. From my experiences in this sort of activity, one way to move
> quickly to achieve this is a process like the following:
> 
>   * Organize and convene a working group (volunteers from major
>     NeXus institutions). The working group needs some basic
>     organization (defined chairperson, editor, and maybe a webmaster).
>     (I don't think slow evolution of the current NeXus website in
>     conjunction with random message exchange will result in a useful
>     formal NeXus definition within a sufficiently short time.
>     A working group that can carry out more intense discussions and
  
  I think it is a good idea to formalize the process a bit. And put some
  drive into it. I would like to be at the committee, though, having
  160899 NeXus files around (state halloween 2002, 8:30 MET) and growing!

			Regards,

				Mark Koennecke