[aspect-devel] ASPECT 2.0 release preparations

[Rene Gassmoeller]

Hi all,

it has been a long time since the last development update, but there
have been a number of changes behind the scenes (take a look at our
changelog at
https://aspect.geodynamics.org/doc/doxygen/changes_current.html), and we
are finally close to finishing the long promised ASPECT 2.0 release! A
huge thanks to the large number of contributors! Some major changes have
been merged in the last two weeks that will require an update to
parameter files and possibly user-written plugins. We realize this is a
big challenge for everyone, and will stabilize everything again from now
on and for the next releases. We slightly modified the update procedure
for existing parameter files and custom plugins, by providing shell
scripts in the doc/ folder (update_prm_files.sh and
update_source_files.sh) that can be called with existing files as
arguments. The script will update those files and keep a backup of the
old versions. All of the changes will lead to cleaner and more intuitive
parameter files, and also allow us to implement new features more
easily. As previously explained, all files in the ASPECT repository have
been updated from 1.5.0 to 2.0.0 using these scripts, but unfortunately
we can not guarantee they will work for every case.

If you want to test your systems with the new version and see if your
parameter files are updated correctly, now would be a good time to do
that. We will wait for a week to see if we find major remaining problems
with the current version, and anticipate to finalize the release early
next week. We will send an official release notice afterwards.

Also: If you have any publications (or student thesis) using ASPECT that
are not on our official list
(https://aspect.geodynamics.org/publications.html) please send us an
email with the details. This is a way for you to promote your paper, and
for us, to assess ASPECT's impact, and this is a very important measure
for us.

Do not miss the ASPECT webinar on May 10th, 2pm PT
(https://geodynamics.org/cig/events/webinars/) that will discuss the
large-scale changes and new features of the release. The webinar will
also be recorded and put online like all other CIG webinars.

Thanks again to all who have made this possible, looking forward to the
next development cycle.

Cheers,
Rene


-- 
Rene Gassmoeller
https://gassmoeller.github.io/