[aspect-devel] ASPECT newsletter

Mon Feb 22 11:51:48 PST 2016

Hi,

For the CIG wiki, users may request an account through: 
	cig-help at geodynamics.org
I have a help ticket in and will get a new account request link set up.

As Rene pointed out, on github all registered users could contribute to a wiki vs. on geodynamics.org you will need a separate login.  There is an upside and downside to both. I can see where on a github wiki where it maybe more convenient to link back to issues and keep specific development activity in a single spot.

From a purely institutional standpoint, we would like to have the software wiki’s for all of our packages be similar.  However, we do realize that every communities needs are different.  For example, the 
PyLith community which has a small development community post their development plans and status online and is updated on a yearly basis (also see README.md on github).  Tutorials and other materials are also here.  The Geodynamo and the CitcomS communities store benchmarking information here. The Geodynamo WG used it extensively in developing their benchmarking paper (you must login to see the details) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GC006159/full <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GC006159/full>. ObsPy (not a CIG code) has a very extensive github wiki: https://github.com/obspy/obspy/wiki <https://github.com/obspy/obspy/wiki>

We are using our YouTube channel for recordings, videos and animations and has separate playlist for ASPECT. So please let us know if you have animations you would like us to link to !

Rene, thanks for volunteering to do this but I keep wondering if there is a less labor intensive way to do this!!! As a watcher of the repository I certainly see everything that flies by. For me what would be useful that a machine could not do is to provide a higher level summary. Often what is happening is in the weeds where I would like to know the bigger picture / framework.

Thanks again!

Best,
-Lorraine

*****************************
Lorraine Hwang, Ph.D.
Associate Director, CIG
530.752.3656

> On Feb 22, 2016, at 10:54 AM, Rene Gassmoeller <rene.gassmoeller at mailbox.org> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the overwhelming feedback!
> 
> So far I would think the general vote would be:
> 
> 1. To establish such a newsletter.
> 2. To keep it at a reasonable length.
> 
> There were mixed responses about the inclusion of issues and whether biweekly or monthly would be the correct interval, so I would go for the following solution:
> 
> Since a biweekly newsletter with only merged features might be short in many weeks, I would include the opened/closed discussions and send it at an two-weeks interval for now (unless it would be empty, there will be no report in case everybody is on vacation). The reasoning behind including the issues is that many bugs first appear there, and it is useful for everybody to know about them, even before they are fixed. Also this promotes the participation in these discussions ;-)
> 
> Lorraine, concerning the Wiki: I was more thinking of a "What has happened in the last time" information, and not of a "What should happen in the next time" information so a newsletter seems more reasonable for this purpose to me. However, the wiki is a great place for other information. E.g. we want to set up a list of systems on which ASPECT has been installed successfully (optionally including installation instructions and scaling information), so the Wiki would be a great place for that. To be honest, I was not aware that there is already a Wiki on the CIG website (https://wiki.geodynamics.org/software:aspect:start). Is this considered a community resource that can be extended by everybody? Somehow, I did not find a way to register myself as a user. Another option would be to start a wiki on Github (see for example https://github.com/dealii/dealii/wiki), which would allow everybody with a Github account (so most of us) to join in writing. We should try to decide on a place, but then it is certainly a community decision what to put in the wiki and what to put in github issues.
> 
> Everybody stay tuned for the newsletter, which might arrive later this week or next week.
> 
> Best,
> Rene
> 
>>> On Feb 21, 2016, at 3:07 PM, Rene Gassmoeller <rene.gassmoeller at mailbox.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello everyone!
>>> 
>>> We are currently considering implementing an automated regular (biweekly
>>> or monthly) newsletter that summarizes the latest developments inside of
>>> ASPECT and would like to ask for your opinion on this issue.
>>> The reasoning behind this idea is that most of the "developer" talk
>>> about new features has moved to the Github platform
>>> (https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect), but Github offers no option of
>>> only receiving a summary email, you either get only emails mentioning
>>> you, or you get all about ASPECT - possibly a hundred per week in busy
>>> weeks.
>>> On the other hand only reading the changelog
>>> (https://aspect.dealii.org/doc/doxygen/changes_current.html) for every
>>> new release every 6 months or so keeps you out of the loop for a long time.
>>> 
>>> We are aware that you might already get a bunch of newsletters and we do
>>> not want to spam this mailing list, so I would like to ask for opinions
>>> on the following questions:
>>> 
>>> 1. Would you consider such newsletters spam, or would you feel it makes
>>> your life easier following the development of ASPECT?
>>> 2. Would you prefer a monthly or biweekly interval?
>>> 3. Are you only interested in merged features (pull requests) or are you
>>> also interested in a list of recently opened/finished discussions
>>> (issues) to keep up-to-date with bug reports, feature requests, and so on?
>>> 
>>> I have posted an example for such a newsletter below, so that you can
>>> get a feeling for how it would look like.
>>> 
>>> Let me know what you think about this idea (otherwise I will try to make
>>> a best guess :-)),
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> Rene
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Hello everyone!
>>> 
>>> This is the biweekly ASPECT newsletter.
>>> Below you find a list of recently merged features and links to the discussions about them:
>>> 
>>> #758 Indent #include statements inside #ifdef...#endif. https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/758
>>> #753 Rename parameters https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/753
>>> #752 Visualization improvements https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/752
>>> #750 Postprocessor for executing shell commands. https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/750
>>> #748 Use mapping for output interpolation https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/748
>>> #747 Use static_cast<int> inside each call to std::abs() in gplates.cc https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/747
>>> #661 Implement interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method for temperature field. https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect/pull/661
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks for being part of the community!
>>> 
>>> Let us know about questions, problems, bugs or just share your experience by writing to aspect-devel at geodynamics.org, or by opening issues or pull requests at https://www.github.com/geodynamics/aspect.
>>> 
>>> Additional information can be found at https://aspect.dealii.org/, https://geodynamics.org/cig/software/aspect/, and https://github.com/geodynamics/aspect.
>>> 
>>> 
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