| | 10 | Some useful questions were asked in this meeting |
| | 11 | * What is the CABB commissioning plan and where do we fit in? We didn't know the answer. |
| | 12 | |
| | 13 | * what is our release process? we didn't know at first. |
| | 14 | |
| | 15 | "release" means "merge changes into main line version".[[BR]] |
| | 16 | A release comprises a defined set of new functionality. |
| | 17 | |
| | 18 | * Given that a "release" is pretty final, we need to do plenty of testing before release, |
| | 19 | both for bugs in the new code and especially for regressions. How will we do that? |
| | 20 | |
| | 21 | * The modified code needs to be available to testers to run, well ahead of release time. |
| | 22 | Because some of the changes have a widespread impact (eg changing {{{maxdim.inc}}}) |
| | 23 | we should have a completely distinct set of binaries, in a directory like |
| | 24 | {{{/nfs/atapplic/miriad-cabb}}}. |
| | 25 | |
| | 26 | * We should probably also provide "snapshot" tarballs in the [ftp://ftp.atnf.csiro.au/pub/software/miriad/ FTP directory] |
| | 27 | for people who want to try the code on their laptop for example. Probably a structure that replicates |
| | 28 | the existing one, but in a separate {{{miriad-cabb}}} directory under {{{software}}}. |
| | 29 | |
| | 30 | * We need regression testers. |
| | 31 | After some discussion we arrived at the idea that the test space can be partitioned on miriad task |
| | 32 | program boundaries. Changes to some programs impacts particular areas of scientific application - |
| | 33 | eg {{{uvspec}}} is more relevant to people doing spectral line observations. |
| | 34 | The main areas of scientific application are in the table below. |
| | 35 | |
| | 36 | || Science area || Tester || Programs || |
| | 37 | || General || anyone || atlod, gpcal, mfcal, invert, uvflag, blflag, uvplt, cgdisp, histo || |
| | 38 | ||GRB brightness measurements || Wieringa || imfit || |
| | 39 | ||HI synthesis of galaxies || Koribalski (LVHIS) || mosmem? || |
| | 40 | ||Masers || Voronkov || || |
| | 41 | ||Continuum imaging (mosaicing) || Feain || linmos || |
| | 42 | ||mm line mapping || Brooks? || || |
| | 43 | ||Zeeman splitting || ? || || |
| | 44 | ||Calibration || Wieringa? || early, sigest, planets, paraplot || |
| | 45 | (please add more as you think of them) |
| | 46 | |
| | 47 | The "testers" named are people whom we could approach for data sets and processing scripts that |
| | 48 | we could co-opt for testing with. Their expertise may be useful if we need to decide whether some |
| | 49 | changes we detect are significant or not. |
| | 50 | |
| | 51 | * How do we detect regressions? |
| | 52 | |
| | 53 | In principle, differencing images made with the two suites should be enough. The differences should be |
| | 54 | exactly zero. |
| | 55 | |
| | 56 | In practice there may be least-significant bit differences, so we will have to devise ways of comparing |
| | 57 | and deciding when a difference is significant. |
| | 58 | |
| | 59 | We will also need to build up ways of detecting where in the processing chain the divergence in results occurred. |
| | 60 | |
