[Halld-offline] Minutes of the July 27, 2010 GlueX Offline Meeting

[Mark M. Ito]

Find the minutes of the July 27, 2010 GlueX Offline Meeting at 
http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/GlueX_Offline_Meeting%2C_July_27%2C_2010 
and reproduced below.

GlueX Offline Meeting, July 27, 2010
Minutes

      * CMU: Curtis Meyer
      * JLab: Andrew Blackburn, Hovanes Egiyan, Mark Ito (chair), Yi Qiang,
        Sasha Somov, Simon Taylor, Elliott Wolin, Beni Zihlmann


Announcements

      * [30]SIMD-enabled code disabled: But only for 32-bit Linux machines.
        The problem seem to be a bug in version 4.2.1 gcc compiler which is
        the default for the Lab's desktop Linux boxes. The code does not
        have a problem on any other platform.
      * Make "docs" area of subversion repository require authentication on
        checkout: We are not going to do this.


Review of minutes from the last meeting

    We reviewed the [32]minutes of the July 13 Offline meeting.
      * OSG Toolkit: Mark mentioned that Richard Jones has written [33]the
        documentation on the OSG client software that was requested by IT
        Division before opening the necessary network ports at the Lab.
      * Software Workshop: David reported that the proposal is due to JSA
        next Friday. It has been circulated among the committee and the
        final draft is waiting on some numbers from Ed Brash.
      * 48-core machine: It is gone now. David ran some stuff, and captured
        some performance counters. There is a lot of data there, next step:
        analysis.
      * Another plug-in trained collaborator: Working from David's talk
        from last week, Beni was able to write one of his own. We still
        need a HOWTO on the subject.


Event Display

    Andrew gave us a demo of the new event display. It is pure Java and is
    constructed within Dave Heddle's bCNU framework. See [35]his HOWTO for
    instructions on how to get and run it.

    He showed us a few events. The code reproduced the views available in
    hdview2 and adds another for the BCAL.The framework provides many
    useful features, such as a heads up display, zooming, multiple views in
    a single frame, etc. Currently, the geometry is hard-coded into the
    routines.

    Lots of feedback was offered on a variety of features.

    We veered briefly into a discussion of HDDM vs. EVIO (as we often do).
    We will have to discuss our attitude toward these (and other for that
    matter) formats soon.

Generalized particle gun

    Mark walked us through [37]his recent email announcing a simple
    perl-based approach to a script driven single particle gun. Although
    this functionality is already present in HDGeant, having all particle
    kinematics under script control allows for arbitrary variation from
    event to event, e. g., the event vertex can be moved under script
    control. The output is HDDM-conforming xml and thus can be converted to
    an HDDM file for input to hdgeant, the conversion done with existing
    tools.

Documentation Policy

    Mark reviewed [39]a wiki page, from last March, outlining a structure
    for our documentation and suggested that we adopt it officially.
    Although the content is nothing more than common sense, having an
    agreed upon structure will help frame documentation
    discussion/decisions in the future. One component that needs to be
    introduced is a GlueX Offline FAQ. Mark agreed to start on this.

    No objections were offered and the suggestion was adopted.

GlueX shell environment set-up policy

    There are two methods that exist to set-up the GlueX environment for
    individuals. One (setenv.csh) captures a working environment and allows
    one to reproduce it faithfully in the future. The other (gluex_env.csh)
    respects key choices made in the current environment, supplies default
    values for those not defined, and defines others based on the key
    variables. The former is useful for reproducing results, the latter for
    first-time environment set-up or non-standard configurations. As such
    Mark thought that in this case we should support both approaches (not
    much work really), and document each. No objections were raised.

Action Item Review

    We reviewed [42]recently resolved issues and [43]those outstanding.

New Action Items

     1. Write a HOWTO on plug-in's in JANA -> David
     2. Schedule an HDDM/EVIO discussion -> Mark
     3. Write the GlueX Offline FAQ -> Mark

    Retrieved from
    
"http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/GlueX_Offline_Meeting%2C_July_27%2C_2010"

References

   30. 
https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2010-July/000327.html
   32. 
http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/GlueX_Offline_Meeting%2C_July_13%2C_2010#Minutes
   33. http://zeus.phys.uconn.edu/UConn-OSG/client-services.html
   35. 
http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/HOWTO_ded:_Install_%26_Run
   37. 
https://mailman.jlab.org/pipermail/halld-offline/2010-July/000330.html
   39. 
http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/Software_Documentation_Structure
   42. 
https://halldweb1.jlab.org/talks/2010-07/recently_resolved_July_27.html
   43. https://halldweb1.jlab.org/talks/2010-07/unresolved_July_27.html