From nch@roe.ac.uk Fri Apr 30 12:31:06 2004 Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 12:26:57 +0100 (BST) From: Nigel Hambly To: WFCAM Science Archive Team -- Eckhard Sutorius , Harvey MacGillivray , Ian Bond , Mike Read , Nigel Hambly , Bob Mann Cc: CCs for WSA weekly meeting minutes distribution -- Clive Davenhall , Andrew Lawrence , Andy Adamson , Peter Shillan , John Taylor , Jim Emerson , Martin Hill , Mike Irwin , Peredur Williams Subject: WFAU WSA weekly meeting minutes, 30th April 2004 Minutes of WFCAM Science Archive meeting: 30rd April 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Present: NCH, IAB, JDT, PMW, MAR, ETWS Apologies: MCH, JPE, HMG, AL, GPS, JMS, RGM DONM: 10am, Friday 14th May 2004, plate library. (VDUC meeting in Cambridge on the 7th May). Actions discharged: ------------------- ACTION: MAR to check in the SSA web interface Java servlet stuff and all associated code in an appropriate structure underneath WFAU/SSA/src Discharged: code now in CVS; ReadMes need doing. Some issues over third-party and class binaries; MAR will liaise with JDT over best practice. ACTION: NCH & IAB to sort out the current compartmentalisation problems in the WSA software. Discharged - see Software below. ACTION: ALL DEVELOPERS to please conform to the existing WSA norm of a rich source code/script header that includes expanded CVS tags and a verbose revision history of that particular file. Discharged: NCH noted that a quick skim over code checked in over the last week shows that developers are adhering to the policy now. ACTION: ETWS & IAB to examine the utility of the Python code summary utility and to inform the team (via a TWiki note) as to how to format code description/comments appropriately. Discharged: see Software below. Actions partly discharged but continuing: ----------------------------------------- ACTION: ALL to review risk register and think of any new internal or external risks that should be documented in the risk register. Defered until top level plan is explicitly defined. PMW tabled the VISTA risk register as an example. ACTION: JPE to design and set up centralised VDFS web pages. Progressing. (there is now a link to it from our WSA Twiki). - continuing; thanks for progressing these. Actions carried forward from 23/04/04 meeting: ----------------------------------------------- ACTION: MAR to look at Java code documenting/summarising facilities and to implement useage of the same in science archive java application code within the CVS. CONTINUES: JavaDoc will be used. Specific points and new actions: -------------------------------- Project management: NCH noted that several submissions had been made to the PPARC Data Curation questionaire (submission deadline midweek), and thanked PMW and MAR for submitting responses on the behalf of the science archiving projects. PMW noted that the next VDMT telecon meeting is scheduled for Tues PM; he would be coming around this afternoon to get updates for filling in the various progress sheets/reports. NCH noted that the inaugural VDUC meeting takes place next Friday (May 7th) in Cambridge. Comments and issues arising from CASU fortnightly minutes: No points arose from the meeting minutes 23/04/2004. Networking: Nothing new this week. Hardware: Eclipse have provided updates on the U320/PCI-X RAID saga. NCH is liaising on benchmarking LSI Logic MegaRAID 2x U320 RAID adapters; initial results are encouraging. Software: NCH noted that following last week's rant much action has been taken over the issues raised and thanks were due to all for reacting positively. IAB reported: "A new implementation of the data models representating filters, programmes and curation tasks has been written. This implementation incorporates links to information stored in the database following a similar philosophy to that followed by Astro-Wise. Entities such as filters, programmes etc are represented by classes with schema independent interfaces. This allows us to encapsulate schema evolution in just the respective class definitions. This is implemented in the python module "DataFactory.py" which has been checked into the CVS." NCH & IAB noted that this essentially solves the compartmentalisation problem noted last week. ETWS reported: "I've written a Twiki page about the usage of epydoc as a documentation tool for our Python code. http://apache.roe.ac.uk/twiki/bin/view/WFAU/CodeDocumentation Epydoc will be installed on djoser by Horst: "Debian testing has this as a package. Perchance that might install." ETWS & NCH noted that the documentation (html by default; also optional pdf, ps and latex source) looks very good and will aid in producing well commented code. ETWS also pointed out that the utility precompiles .py files and C includes on the fly, and traps many syntax errors etc. which is most useful. NCH asked that all Python developers now adhere to the suggested commenting regime on the TWiki pages. NCH & IAB have been continuing development of the DB-driven source merging software (CU7). SSA: NCH noted that the SSA was launched on Friday 23 April pm, and that encouraging comments are already feeding back. The web interface in particular is attracting much praise, and NCH thanked MAR and ETWS for their efforts. Miscellaneous: The group noted the interest within Astrogrid concerning the SSA, and that the Data Centre WG would now be liaising on integration of the SSA in "PAL" server-side data centre infrastructure software. NCH noted that the quarterly plan includes a staff effort line for this purpose, and also that IAB may like to keep a close eye on web-service development as this is an area of interest. At this stage, the group expects to be liaising with MCH on deployment of Iteration N-1 (during the current Iteration N, where N=6?) server side software on the web server thoth, and also a hardware installation for, amongst other things, a "MySpace" server.