X-Git-Url: https://www.yuggoth.org/gitweb?p=weather.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=NEWS;fp=NEWS;h=548837825d27cf570722e1eed5d9f2a78d0c7024;hp=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000;hb=93f58b4538974d6c1d0161cf1d273fe7576c74dd;hpb=4d25a49d5a5ec5415f8e83ba26fea5adf4e5512a diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5488378 --- /dev/null +++ b/NEWS @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +================================================= + New Version Information for the Weather Utility +================================================= + +:Copyright: (c) 2006-2012 Jeremy Stanley . Permission + to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software is + granted under terms provided in the LICENSE file distributed + with this software. + +.. contents:: + +2.0 Release +----------- +The 2.0 release involves a major rewrite of the underlying code and +addition of large volumes of previously-unneeded location correlation +data. In the Spring of 2011 the USA NOAA/NWS made significant changes to +the way they organized and published forecast data such that it could +no longer be supported by design assumptions inherent within this +utility. Attempts were made to preserve backward compatability with 1.x +command-line usage and configuration file formats where possible, but +some regressions are unfortunately unavoidable. The aurl, city, flines, +furl, id, murl, st and zones options have been removed. Minimal logic +was retained to recognize and continue supporting limited use of city, +id and st in configuration files, though these are deprecated for +eventual removal in a future release. + +On a positive note, this provided an opportunity to design out +some reported bugs and add in numerous requested features. Highlights +include: + + * Because NOAA/NWS now treats forecast data in the same way as alerts, + the alert reporting features are now much better integrated and no + longer considered a beta test. + + * The lack of memorable alert/forecast zone coding in the new scheme + drove development of intelligent search functionality, allowing users + to find stations and zones through a variety of methods like place + names, IATA/FAA/ICAO/FIPS/ZIP codes and even raw coordinates. + + * To reduce unnecessary load on NOAA/NWS servers, the utility now + caches retrieved data for a configurable period of time. + + * Airport code lists are no longer maintained in configuration (though + they are still easily overridden through configuration), and are + instead now separately managed in a manner similar to the other + pregenerated correlation data. + +Worth noting, however, is that the new forecast data publication format +(now essentially identical to the alert format) is all-caps freeform +prose, and not easily parsed as a result. Due to the lengthy nature of +this output, piping it through a pager is highly recommended.