But Eric's comment reminds me that there is a STRONG reason for moving a data set between the various applications that deal with descriptive data: a single person might want to use DELTA, LucID, PAUP and McClade in the same study. It would be "nice" to have the capability to create and maintain a single data set that could store and "serve" data to each application. If we could create the specification for that data set, I would judge this effort a success.

As a person who went from DELTA to PAUP and tried to come back again (after much massaging of the data), I'd add that the transferrance needs to go both ways -- after you port your data to PAUP/MacClade and massage it somewhat, it would be nice to (relatively) painlessly come back to DELTA with those changes rather than having to begin from scratch and then combine the two data sets.

Susan Farmer sfarmer@goldsword.com Botany Department, University of Tennessee http://www.goldsword.com/sfarmer/Trillium