From: Stan Blum sblum@CALACADEMY.ORG To: TDWG-SDD

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.

This is the raison d'etre of DELTA. To quote from the Introduction in the User's Guide:

When taxonomic descriptions are prepared for input to computer programs, the form of the coding is usually dictated by the requirements of a particular program or set of programs. This restricts the type of data that can be represented, and the number of other programs that can use the data. ... The DELTA (DEscription Language for TAxonomy) system was developed to overcome these problems. ... A format-conversion program, Confor, converts DELTA-format data into natural language, or into formats required by several other programs, including Key (generation of keys), Dist (generation of distance matrices), Paup, MacClade (Nexus), and Hennig86 (cladistic analysis), and Intkey (interactive identification and information retrieval).

In other words, DELTA was designed to be a single source for the descriptive data required by a variety of applications. It still fulfils this function better than other formats currently in use - see http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/www/compdata.htm.

If we could create the specification for that data set, I would judge this effort a success.

Producing such a specification, i.e. for a new 'superset' data format, was one of the goals mentioned in the minutes of the last meeting of the TDWG-SDD group. I agree with Stan that it is the most important goal, and perhaps the discussion should start to focus more on it. Also, more progress might be made if the initial effort were directed to the less controversial and more achievable parts - perhaps a discussion and consolidation of the features used by existing programs. The above-mentioned document might be a starting point.

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Mike Dallwitz

CSIRO Entomology, GPO Box 1700, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia Phone: +61 2 6246 4075 Fax: +61 2 6246 4000 Email: md@ento.csiro.au Internet: biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/