graphics/opendx and dropping science/hdf

[Quincey Koziol]

Hi Mikhail,

> I intend to drop the science/hdf port. It was obsoleted by hdf5 long ago
> (was it?), it breaks on some some 64bit platforms, it conflicts with
> math/netcdf.
> 
> All the technical issues are, probably, fixable, but the obsoleteness
> makes them not worth the effort. Or so it seems.
> 
> The only port relying on science/hdf is graphics/opendx and only if
> WITH_HDF is defined. Unfortunately, opendx does not (yet?) support hdf5.
> 
> So...
> 	. Does hdf5 really obsolete hdf4?
    No, they are different file formats & libraries, etc.

> 	. Does hdf support add much value to opendx at all,
> 	  or can we just remove it?
    I don't know.

> 	. If not, should I (or some other helping hand) try to patch
> 	  opendx to use hdf5?
    It would certainly be nice if opendx supported hdf5.

> 		or
> 	. bring the old hdf4 into the 21st century (fixing the types,
> 	  depending on math/netcdf instead of building its own)?
    It shouldn't be _too_ hard to fix the type information in hdf4 (I can help
you with that, if you'd like), but it would be _very_ hard to depend on
math/netcdf instead of its own.

    Quincey

> 
> Thanks for any ideas,
> 
> 	-mi
>