From: Thomas J. D. <to...@fi...> - 2005-02-19 14:41:55
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Alan, I hope to spend some time next week documenting the plplotcanvas. I would really like to have that documentation included in the tarball release, so that the plplotcanvas momentum can be maintained too. I'm new here, so what is the typical series of events and deadlines in the coordination of a plplot release? Cheers, Tom - -- > To help keep the unicode font momentum going, it would be a good idea to > both generate a new cvs snapshot tarball to be uploaded to our website (so > windows users can have a crack at the new font infrastructure) and > regenerate the website as a whole with the new font documentation I checked > in almost a month ago. However, both Rafael and I have severe constraints on > our time at the moment so this is an excellent opportunity for one of the > new Linux core developers to try their hand at creating a new tarball, > testing it (of course), and updating the website. This would be excellent > experience for one of you and also it would be a good test of all the > scripts and Makefile rules that have been put together to generate the > tarball and update our website. > > If you are interested, please say something on list so two or more of you do > not interfere with each other. There are clear instructions of exactly what > to do at www/README. (Of course, you have to do a cvs checkout of the www > module first so you can read those instructions.) Gnu make is required so > that is why we must restrict this to core developers with access to a Linux > system. If you run into any issues, please give a detailed bug report of the > problem to plplot-devel so we can fix the scripts or Makefile rules > accordingly. > > Alan > __________________________ > Alan W. Irwin > email: ir...@be... > phone: 250-727-2902 > > Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, > University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). > > Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation > for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software > package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the > Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project > (lbproject.sf.net). > __________________________ > > Linux-powered Science > __________________________ - -- Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3J5. Tel: (902)494-1456 | Fax: (902)494-5191 | Lab: (902)494-3813 Web: http://aolab.phys.dal.ca/~tomduck/ Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x17D965DB Tier I CRC Chair in Atmospheric Science: http://www.atm.dal.ca/jobs/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCF08mndxDHhfZZdsRApbtAKCfBqyW0trfbhmhznK8NNBt4BbMAACg3zCP kNaGQOPzEhb4HLK6VKY/qsg= =uU+V -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
From: Thomas J. D. <to...@fi...> - 2005-02-20 13:40:52
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Rafael, It has been over a year since the last plplot release, and great strides have been made in that time. I am way too busy during the term to coordinate a release. The summer is also busy with research, but... *gulp* ... I would be willing to be RM for an official release with the bulk of effort being made this summer. This assumes that I would have the agreement of the development team, and the necessary support in stabilizing the code, documentation, bug fixes, etc. If you, or Alan, or someone else with more experience already has plans for the next official release, I would happily defer. However, I think that it would be useful to begin planning for the next official release at this time. Sincerely, Tom - -- * Rafael Laboissiere <rla...@us...>: > > * Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> [2005-02-19 10:37]: > > > I hope to spend some time next week documenting the plplotcanvas. I > > would really like to have that documentation included in the tarball > > release, so that the plplotcanvas momentum can be maintained too. > > Great. I also think that having the plplotcanvas documentation included in > the tarball is a good thing. > > > I'm new here, so what is the typical series of events and deadlines in the > > coordination of a plplot release? > > I do not remember of any two releases that have followed the same scheme but > this is how it happens, roughly: > > * A developer steps forward to be the Release Manager (RM). > > * We wait until HEAD stabilizes and all ports produce decent results in > building, installing and running (our main regression test here is the > plplot-test.sh script written by Alan). > > * Once the RM is happy with HEAD, it establishes a deadline past which the > other developers should only commit bug-fixing changes to HEAD. If the > developers insist in adding potentially destabilizing code with new cool > features then the RM has to create a repository branch for the release > (this happened to me as RM once). > > * After extensive tests, we start releasing release-candidate (RC) tarballs. > These tarballs are quite widely advertised, such that regular users can > help the PLplot to fix the last bugs. Normally, no more than three RC > tarballs should be necessary. > > * If everything goes okay, the last RC tarball is canonized as the next > official release. > > Notice that this is the procedure for an official release. In this thread, > we are talking about a CVS snapshot tarball, which is not expected to be > completely stable. > > -- > Rafael - -- Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3J5. Tel: (902)494-1456 | Fax: (902)494-5191 | Lab: (902)494-3813 Web: http://aolab.phys.dal.ca/~tomduck/ Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x17D965DB Tier I CRC Chair in Atmospheric Science: http://www.atm.dal.ca/jobs/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCGJJUndxDHhfZZdsRAkYwAJ4ypnPHrA6IILlBeZOElb3PcWLKvQCgrS1l xDIK7a5b3cUTePp6MWt4Z4o= =svQh -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
From: Rafael L. <rla...@us...> - 2005-02-20 14:03:31
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* Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> [2005-02-20 09:36]: > It has been over a year since the last plplot release, and great > strides have been made in that time. I am way too busy during the term to > coordinate a release. The summer is also busy with research, but... > *gulp* ... I would be willing to be RM for an official release with the > bulk of effort being made this summer. This assumes that I would have > the agreement of the development team, and the necessary support in > stabilizing the code, documentation, bug fixes, etc. Thanks a lot for taking the RM duties for the next release. PLplot is a complex piece of software with many contributors and this fact reflects in the complexity of the release process. So, do not despair if things start to become tough. I will support you during the process and I am sure Alan will do the same. -- Rafael |
From: Alan W. I. <ir...@be...> - 2005-02-20 16:13:43
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On 2005-02-20 15:03+0100 Rafael Laboissiere wrote: > * Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> [2005-02-20 09:36]: > >> It has been over a year since the last plplot release, and great >> strides have been made in that time. I am way too busy during the term to >> coordinate a release. The summer is also busy with research, but... >> *gulp* ... I would be willing to be RM for an official release with the >> bulk of effort being made this summer. This assumes that I would have >> the agreement of the development team, and the necessary support in >> stabilizing the code, documentation, bug fixes, etc. > > Thanks a lot for taking the RM duties for the next release. PLplot is a > complex piece of software with many contributors and this fact reflects in > the complexity of the release process. So, do not despair if things start > to become tough. I will support you during the process and I am sure Alan > will do the same. Yes I will. Thanks, Thomas, for being willing to step forward to be our next release manager. Also, you should not be intimidated by Rafael's comments about release complexity. All that complexity is hidden inside the scripts and make commands mentioned in www/README so the actual mechanics of making a release are now dead simple for the release manager. CVS HEAD is pretty stable right now so your principal tasks will be coordinating the testing effort with our developers and users (mostly by making sure a steady stream of CVS HEAD snapshot tarballs are available), deciding which problems are really release critical and which are not, and publicizing the release. BTW, it is not too unusual for someone relatively new to the PLplot team to become release manager. That happened to me (I made my first PLplot release in early 2001), and it was a quite positive experience where I learned a lot. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin email: ir...@be... phone: 250-727-2902 Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ |
From: Thomas J. D. <to...@fi...> - 2005-02-21 14:02:07
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, Double *gulp*. I guess that I am RM by acclamation. Well, that's OK. It will be interesting to learn more about the project, and get to know some of you a little better. I'm going to think about this for a bit, and do some reading. I'll come back with a plan for discussion. Thanks for your offers of support, Rafael and Alan. I will definitely take you up on that! Cheers, Tom - -- Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3J5. Tel: (902)494-1456 | Fax: (902)494-5191 | Lab: (902)494-3813 Web: http://aolab.phys.dal.ca/~tomduck/ Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x17D965DB Tier I CRC Chair in Atmospheric Science: http://www.atm.dal.ca/jobs/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCGejNndxDHhfZZdsRAhp6AJ0T46x70cx4cS9wm/E+Zgt/NOGc4QCfUa5l 0effbqsJAHvQFqdih/sRdok= =9igy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
From: Rafael L. <rla...@us...> - 2005-02-19 16:57:53
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* Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> [2005-02-19 10:37]: > I hope to spend some time next week documenting the plplotcanvas. I > would really like to have that documentation included in the tarball > release, so that the plplotcanvas momentum can be maintained too. Great. I also think that having the plplotcanvas documentation included in the tarball is a good thing. > I'm new here, so what is the typical series of events and deadlines in the > coordination of a plplot release? I do not remember of any two releases that have followed the same scheme but this is how it happens, roughly: * A developer steps forward to be the Release Manager (RM). * We wait until HEAD stabilizes and all ports produce decent results in building, installing and running (our main regression test here is the plplot-test.sh script written by Alan). * Once the RM is happy with HEAD, it establishes a deadline past which the other developers should only commit bug-fixing changes to HEAD. If the developers insist in adding potentially destabilizing code with new cool features then the RM has to create a repository branch for the release (this happened to me as RM once). * After extensive tests, we start releasing release-candidate (RC) tarballs. These tarballs are quite widely advertised, such that regular users can help the PLplot to fix the last bugs. Normally, no more than three RC tarballs should be necessary. * If everything goes okay, the last RC tarball is canonized as the next official release. Notice that this is the procedure for an official release. In this thread, we are talking about a CVS snapshot tarball, which is not expected to be completely stable. -- Rafael |
From: Alan W. I. <ir...@be...> - 2005-02-19 17:27:30
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On 2005-02-19 10:37-0400 Thomas J. Duck wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hi Alan, > > I hope to spend some time next week documenting the plplotcanvas. I > would really like to have that documentation included in the tarball > release, so that the plplotcanvas momentum can be maintained too. > I'm new here, so what is the typical series of events and deadlines in the > coordination of a plplot release? The principal thing to know is the release is typically done from CVS HEAD. Most developers use CVS HEAD for their own active plotting use and our CVS HEAD snapshots are regularly tested by our users. Thus, CVS HEAD tends to be quite stable. Also, although the core team is fairly large they are all spare-time volunteers so not too many PLplot developers are active at the same time. Thus, there is not a whole lot of coordination needed for our releases, and the PLplot release process has tended to be quite short and informal in consequence. Back when I was release manager, we never had a formal code freeze, but I found every developer essentially self-imposed one on themselves so essentially all PLplot development activity stopped from the time a release date was announced until the release. Thus, the ideal strategy was to make that length of time as short as possible consistent with a need to thoroughly test PLplot on as many different systems as possible during the release process. So typically the release date was agreed to about a month before actual release. Since Rafael has taken on the release manager role, I believe he once created a release branch a week or so before the release date, but I doubt that complication will normally be necessary. To answer your specific concern, no release date has been set at all at this time (neither Rafael nor myself have time for it in the near future), and there is still my shopping list of unicode font coding issues to sort out as well. Also, you and Hazen will ideally make your respective new devices work with the unicode font infrastructure as well. So the next PLplot release is at least several months from now if not later. Thus, so long as you cvs commit your new documentation anytime in the next month or two it will automatically get first into the cvs snapshots and on our website (as soon as somebody takes me up on my offer to get some experience at creating a cvs snapshot and regenerating the website) and ultimately into the release. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin email: ir...@be... phone: 250-727-2902 Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ |
From: Thomas J. D. <to...@fi...> - 2005-02-19 18:13:32
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Alan, > release is at least several months from now if not later. Thus, so long as > you cvs commit your new documentation anytime in the next month or two it > will automatically get first into the cvs snapshots and on our website > (as soon as somebody takes me up on my offer to get some experience at > creating a cvs snapshot and regenerating the website) and ultimately into > the release. This was just what I was looking for: I need to get things into order within the next 1-2 months (rather than 1-2 weeks) for the first tarball release that includes the plplotcanvas. The plplotcanvas is working reasonably well now. There is still a wishlist that needs to be addressed, and I have been working on it as time allows. Due to the release goal, my priority list for the plplotcanvas is: 1) Docbook documentation 2) New build (e.g., create libplplotcanvas.so as per RL's comments) 3) Wishlist items (dashed line handling, unicode, etc) Let me know if you think these should be reordered. Thanks, Tom - -- Thomas J. Duck <to...@fi...> Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3J5. Tel: (902)494-1456 | Fax: (902)494-5191 | Lab: (902)494-3813 Web: http://aolab.phys.dal.ca/~tomduck/ Public key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x17D965DB Tier I CRC Chair in Atmospheric Science: http://www.atm.dal.ca/jobs/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCF4C2ndxDHhfZZdsRAr1lAJ4qYt/Rom58L5Ko3/ZbjNBZJRQDigCg08HD EKwkTvJqjd7g1JfL43QoESc= =Xxp1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
From: Alan W. I. <ir...@be...> - 2005-02-19 20:49:25
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On 2005-02-19 14:08-0400 Thomas J. Duck wrote: > > The plplotcanvas is working reasonably well now. There is still a > wishlist that needs to be addressed, and I have been working on it as time > allows. Due to the release goal, my priority list for the plplotcanvas > is: > > 1) Docbook documentation > 2) New build (e.g., create libplplotcanvas.so as per RL's comments) > 3) Wishlist items (dashed line handling, unicode, etc) > > Let me know if you think these should be reordered. (1) is important. (2) is important as well since (IIRC) it is a cross-platform issue and without a solution your device will work on nothing but Linux. With regards to the importance of (3), Unicode fonts make terrific looking results. :-) What I am trying to suggest here semi-humorously is the order you do things is probably not that important so long as steady progress is made. So I suggest you do the above in the order that is most convenient/interesting for you to maximize the rate of progress. Note for both Hazen and you. If there are still some major limitations to your new device driver at release time we probably would not delay the release. Instead, we would mention the limitation in the release announcement or notes associated with the release and probably make a second release as soon as that major limitation was removed from your device. Speaking of a quick second release assumes we will have reasonably short release cycles after this next release. That certainly has not been the case recently, but my own view is that is an artifact of not having enough developers with release manager expertise/time on hand. Actually, our software has been in good enough shape with enough bug fixes and new features to justify several releases during this last year. The problem was finding somebody with enough time to do the task of coordinating the testing efforts (and following up on any bugs that were found), writing the release announcement, generating the documentation, updating the website, etc. Thanks to Rafael's efforts, many of those tasks are automated now with scripts that are documented in www/README. And if you announce the CVS snapshot tarballs, our users generally provide a fine set of cross-platform tests. Thus, if we can get more core Linux developers engaged with using those scripts (say for generation and at least superficial testing of CVS snapshots, generation of the documentation, generation of the website, etc.), then those developers can gain enough experience to step in as release manager (or at least help out) when Rafael and I have too many other time commitments (as now) to do a release by ourselves. So again, to bring this back to the original subject, does any developer here want to have a go at using the scripts/make commands mentioned in www/README for upgrading various aspects (CVS snapshot tarball, documentation, etc.) of our website to be consistent with our CVS version? Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin email: ir...@be... phone: 250-727-2902 Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ |