SPECIAL NRAO Applications Users Group Meeting - DRAFT MINUTES Date: 2007-04-04 (Wednesday) Time: 1300 MST (1500 EST) Video Hub: SOC-conf Rooms: SOC317/CV-ER311 NOTE SPECIAL DAY (not 2nd Wednesday) ******************************************************************* Minutes: Send additions or corrections to smyers 1. NAUG News o general news (Steve) 2. CASA Status Report Standard items: o CASA status (Joe) - see main event o release status (Joe) - "patch" (was stable) status and timeline - CASA distribution and platform support - defect status o use and testing status (Steve, Mark, Joe) - user testing and interface: see main event o development targets (Joe) - See also project office page: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu and on the CASA Wiki https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/CASA 3. ALMA Standard items: o ALMA Test status (Joe, Steve) - ALMA Test 5 report: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu/ALMA2007.03/Offline.Test5.Report.mar07.final.pdf o NAASC issues (John, Crystal) - NAASC support for Beta testing o ALMA development targets (Joe, Steve) - mosaicing and simulator developments (Steve,Kumar) see demo in Main Event - see schedule at http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu and on the CASA Wiki https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/CASA 4. EVLA Standard items: o EVLA test results (Joe, Michael) Draft report from the EVLA test (Rupen) See: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/reports/evlatest_06feb07_summary.txt o EVLA development plan & requirements - see schedule at http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu and on the CASA Wiki https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/CASA 5. Main Event - Presentations and Discussion Items *************************************************************** See: https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/2007-Apr-04 - Beta Release Planning (Joe,Ed): Joe presented an updated Beta planning list. There is now a Beta Planning page: https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/BetaPlanning - MS Selection (Sanjay,Joe): One item was a followup on MS selection, including a pointer to the planning document https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/MSSelection and Sanjay's list of examples: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/notes/2007-04-04-sanjay-examples.txt Note that in Sanjay's examples, the selection are strings and should be quoted as such in casapy Python. These examples are presented from the perspective of the software underneath, not from the casapy environment! Stay tuned for casapy user examples. - Task List (Ed,Steve): For the run up to the Beta, we will need "mentors" for the main tasks that will be in charge of the testing of, the in-line and cookbook documention for those tasks, and to stay on top of updates to the tasks and maintain contact with the developers. Ed and Steve will lead the process of going through the toolkit and taskset and checking names and parameter consistency. From this, we will construct a functional "map" of the CASA system. Steve has drafted a list of grouped sets of tasks and assigned "mentors" based upon discussion at the NAUG meeting. See http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/plan/2007-04-05-betatasks.txt - Task Demo (Kumar,Joe): Based on the proposal in the Simulator Task proposal by Steve, Crystal, and Rob http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/plan/almasimplan_20070207.txt http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/plan/almasimparams_20070210.txt Joe and Kumar have protyped this up. Note that the use of expanding/contracting parameter lists will be likely be adopted for all tasks. All thought this was super-cool (thanks Kumar)! The use of color was good. Some suggestions discussed included: o put in some (commented) separators for expanded parameters o use boldface o cannot indent as this breaks copy/paste into python o can put colors on parname and value separately to mean different things An updated example is shown at https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/Software/2007-Apr-04 - Documentation (Ed,Steve,Mark): The latest version of the cookbook is available at: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu/ALMA2007.03/CASA_mar07.pdf This is an update of what was given to the ALMA Test 5 testers (Includes Steve's updated Single Dish section). We need to come up with a NAUG plan for the documentation up to the Beta release. This includes updated documentation at each of the Alpha patch stages. No time was available for an extensive discussion of the documentation plan, but Steve promised to send out a plan ASAP. This will include the role of the task mentors, and a staged delivery (including for the April Alpha patch 0.5). - Miscellaneous Discussion (NAUG): It was asked whether it might be better to make the .last auto-save files be dot-files, e.g. ..last so they don't clutter the directory when you do ls *************************************************************** Future Topics o Final selection scheme (George,Sanjay) o suggestions welcome 6. AIPS++ Developments - see latest targets and info at Project Office: http://projectoffice.aips2.nrao.edu/ 7. Upcoming meetings and deadlines: o 2007 Apr 30? CASA Alpha patch 0.5 to ATST5 testers o 2007 June 15? CASA Alpha patch 1 o 2007 June 18-21 NRAO 50th Anniversary Symposium (CV) o 2007 June 22-24 Meeting "Transformational Science with ALMA: Through Disks to Stars and Planets" (CV) o 2007 Aug 15? CASA Alpha patch 2 o 2007 Sep 30 CASA Beta Release! o 2007 Oct 1 Vogons destroy Earth The agendas for past NAUG meetings are archived at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/agenda/ The minutes for past NAUG meetings are archived at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/naug/minutes/