DAS1.6
DAS 1.6 is, as of 19th October 2010, the latest official version of DAS. The specification document is found here: DAS 1.6 specification
The DAS specification is a technical document but with some effort should hopefully be readable and understandable by people without a deep understanding of broader technical issues and other system architectures. That is, it makes only basic assumptions.
Purpose
It is the first official version published in several years, and aims to:
- clarify ambiguities in the previous DAS specification
- better reflect how DAS is being used in the community today
- better reflect the use of DAS beyond the genome-centric arena (protein sequences and structures)
- ratify commands from the 1.53E extended spec
- introduce some ideas inspired by DAS/2
- formally introduce the DAS registry
- migrate from the use of DTDs for describing the XML formats to RelaxNG
The list of changes is listed here: DAS 1.6 Changes.
Compatibility
Software developers wanting to know more about supporting or migrating between different versions of the specification may wish to consult the DAS 1.6 Migration page.
Extensions
Several extensions to the 1.6 are proposed by community members. See the DAS1.6E page for more details.
Development
The specification was developed as a community collaboration via progression through a number of drafts:
