[ferret_users] ferret into the future

[John Luick <john.luick@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I would like to hear some ideas about the following...

Are any plans to develop ferret into a major upgrade (I mean, aside from 
the ongoing improvements and extensions)?

There are some very nice features, as described in the "About Ferret" 
page.  I am concerned that as long as it remains in its present form it 
will eventually succumb to its competitors. I have seen reference to a 
gui-based Ferret which evidently was unsuccessful. Was this because the 
ferret command structure is inherently impossible to put into that form, 
or do people simply prefer command-line scripts?

Often, even after I get a new script to work, after some 
experimentation, I'm still not sure why it worked. A lot of things are 
counter-intuitive and hence readily forgotten. Here is a quote from a 
Python user (from the ROMS discussion board): "Many other numerical 
ocean circulation sects use ferret, or some similarly goofy tool." I 
think that those counter-intuitive things have put a lot of people off. 
I don't think "goofy" is quite fair, but sometimes the word "sadistic" 
comes to mind!

What I am suggesting is a higher-level layer over the top of the current 
scripting tools that could perform most of what they presently do. Those 
that prefer the scripts could still do so.

In the mid 80's, I often used a set of graphics and analysis tools from 
PMEL called "R2D2". These were very handy, easy to learn, and perfectly 
understandable. So I know that PMEL has, or at least had, what it takes!

John