From Liyun.Wang.1@gsfc.nasa.gov Tue Nov 18 16:41:41 2003 Date: Mon, 05 May 1997 17:39:39 -0400 From: Liyun Wang Reply-To: sumer-soft@esa.nascom.nasa.gov To: SUMER software list Subject: SUMER-SOFT: SUMER contributed software -- ================================================================== Liyun Wang | FAX: 301-286-0264 G1 Building 26, SOHO EAF | Voice: 301-286-3126 NASA, GSFC, Code 682.3 | Liyun.Wang.1@gsfc.nasa.gov Greenbelt, MD 20771 | http://orpheus.nascom.nasa.gov/~lwang ================================================================== [ Part 2: "Attached Text" ] MEMORANDUM ------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: May 5, 1997 Subject: SUMER contributed software To: SUMER software contributors From: Liyun Wang, NASA/GSFC ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. What is this memo about? This memo is about change of the PUBLISH process of the SUMER contributed software. 2. Why does the current PUBLISH process need the change? There are a couple of weaknesses in the current approach: 1) Contributors do not have much control on their files once these files are published. Published files cannot be deleted from the software tree (in directories under CONTRIB), nor can be moved from one subdirectory to the other. 2) There is no enforced policy for checking routine name conflict. This can cause serious problems, depending on where the "offending" routines sit in the IDL path. 3) Because of 2), there are currently many routines defined repeatedly in many contributors' directories, leading to confusion of which and whose version is the most "authoritative" and up-to-date. 3. What's new with the new PUBLISH process? Based on numerous discussions with PIs and many software contributors, Claude and I have decided to change (again!) the way in which the SUMER contributed software is published. This change will be mostly transparent to all contributors. However, there are several important points that you need to keep in mind: 1) You will have the total control on what you contribute. The PUBLISH process will just make a mirror copy of what you have in your [.MYCONTRIB] subdirectory (and any subdirectories under it). You will therefore take a greater responsibility on what you contribute. Please do not remove from your [.MYCONTRIB] directory any of your files that you intend to contribute. Also, please move files that are not part of your contribution out of your [.MYCONTRIB] directory. 2) When you use the PUBLISH command to publish your stuff, the PUBLISH process looks through *all* your IDL programs under your [.MYCONTRIB] subdirectory (and its subdirectories) for routine name conflict check against the SUMER software tree. If any conflict is found, you will be notified for the offending routines, and the PUBLISH process will stop. When this happens, you must resolve the conflict by renaming your routines or deleting routines that are authored by other people. 4. What do you need to do to cope with the new PUBLISH process? We will temporarily disable the current PUBLISH program and give you two to three weeks of waiting period for you to make preparation. During this period, we would appreciate it if you could do the following: 1) Make sure that your [.MYCONTRIB] directory holds *all* files that you intend to contribute and that are most up-to-date. This means that you should copy all files in CONTRIB:[user] (where user is your login username) directory that you don't currently have in your [.MYCONTRIB] directory or that are more up-to-date back to your [.MYCONTRIB] directory. 2) Resolve any routine name conflict you may have in your software. You can use the "CHECK_MYCONTRIB" command to check for such conflict. If you are not the author of a routine whose name conflicts with existing software, please remove the routine from your [.MYCONTRIB] directory (unless you intend to maintain that routine; in that case, you need to notify the original author if possible and have him/her remove the routine from his/her part). 3) If you cannot resolve the conflict because other contributor(s) made your routine(s) as part of his/her contribution, you need to ask that contributor to remove your routine(s) from his/her contribution directory. 4) Please send us a message confirming that you are ready for the change. If you have problem resolving routine name conflict, please also contact us, and we will do all we can to help you. Please note that if we do not receive your confirmation by the time we activate the new process, we will move all your files from CONTRIB:[user] to your [.MYCONTRIB] directory, assuming that everything in your CONTRIB:[user] is up-to-date. You will have to publish them again yourself. We will tentatively activate the new PUBLISH process on June 1, 1997. We will send a notice to you before we that. 5. Other issues In order to make SUMER contributed software easy to distribute, we will set up a utility directory (under CONTRIB) to hold commonly used IDL programs written by SUMER team members. Inevitably, the SUMER contributed software depends on many IDL programs written by other teams and institutes. We should not, just for easy distribution, make such programs as part of SUMER contributed software. Anyone who wishes to run our software should get at least routines in the utility directory and probably other basic routines (i.e., those in the SSW tree under $SSW/gen/idl). As a contributor, we should have a clear idea on what routines are needed in order to run the piece of software we write.