chris.ne...@utoronto.ca wrote:
Dear Roland:
I am not sure what my barrier is electronically, only that there is a
barrier. The web site has changed since my last attempt to make
modifications, but I still can not add to the site as I once could when
it was simply a wiki. Currently, I have a tab labeled "[MISSING:
skin.common.this-page]" and if I click on it there is an edit page
option but it is commented out, even when I am logged in.
To edit the wiki, you have to be added as a contributor by Rossen after you've
created your account. This process started when the Gromacs site transitioned over.
My suggestion for the documentation and the test suite is that these
aspects of gromacs become part of the "vision" in the way that speed is
prioritized. A while back, myself and a colleague had a gromacs
pull-code extension turned down as a contribution because it would
negatively impact the overall performance of gromacs in the general
case. After I mulled that decision over for a while, I realized that it
was actually a very good and very important decision made by the
developers to keep gromacs as fast as possible over the long term even
if that meant losing out on some bells and whistles in the short term.
So I would suggest that this philosophy might be usefully applied to
code development and that modification acceptance would be dependent on
the provision of both documentation and a test suite. Not glamorous, I
know, but it's my two-cents and it's why I tend to stay more than a year
behind the release cycle with my important runs.
I tend to be the same way. I will usually play with new features, but I haven't
done any production runs with any version post-4.0.7 (mostly due to the fact
that I prefer continuity). I agree with this assessment. The need for a test
suite that actually works has been debated for a long time, usually amounting to
incremental progress at best, but it seems that other MD packages provide
extensive tests, though Gromacs does not. I know many are willing to help
develop it, and I guess we're waiting on a way to effectively communicate, set
priorities and to-do lists, and put it all in motion. Is the Redmine
infrastructure on the way? Do we have an estimate on when that might be
available? I think it would really help.
-Justin
Thanks again,
Chris.
-- original message --
sorry I didn't pay attention (was in a hurry). I know that you have helped
with the documentation and wouldn't have suggested to you to put it on the
wiki if I recognized it was you. I thought it was a new user. And I didn't
want to criticize but only point out (to the assumed new user) that the
wiki
can be improved by everyone.
Do you have suggestion of how to improve the documentation or the test
suite? What is the barrier to the wiki?
I have mentioned that before (on the dev-list) but I think a monthly phone
conference could help to coordinate those kind of issues.
Roland
On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 10:07 PM, <chris.neale at utoronto.ca> wrote:
<<I have changed the topic to continue a conversation that started on
"cmake --> relocation R_X86_64_32S against `a local symbol' can not be
used
when making a shared object;>>
Dear Roland:
It is not my intention to be confrontational, your assistance was very
useful, I appreciate it very much, and I realize that it's not your
job to
comment everything (or even answer my questions on this mailing list).
Further, I have actually contributed significantly to the gromacs wiki in
the past, but it's not a wiki anymore and the barrier to posting is
enough
that I'm not the only person who has given up on it.
Second, I would like to mention that as a user I am extremely hesitant to
upgrade my gromacs version due to the lack of commenting and lack of a
good
test suite. Anybody who used the free energy code with TIP4P in
2008/2009 or
used the pull code in the early versions of gromacs 4 will probably agree
with me that testing and documentation are at least as important as new
code.
I'm not asking anybody else to add documentation or test suites. I'm
simply
pointing out that gromacs is falling behind in these areas and it is not
necessarily a good thing. I think that there is a utility in simply
noting
this.
Sincerely,
Chris.
--
========================================
Justin A. Lemkul
Ph.D. Candidate
ICTAS Doctoral Scholar
MILES-IGERT Trainee
Department of Biochemistry
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA
jalemkul[at]vt.edu | (540) 231-9080
http://www.bevanlab.biochem.vt.edu/Pages/Personal/justin
========================================
--
gmx-users mailing list gmx-users@gromacs.org
http://lists.gromacs.org/mailman/listinfo/gmx-users
Please search the archive at
http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists/Search before posting!
Please don't post (un)subscribe requests to the list. Use the
www interface or send it to gmx-users-requ...@gromacs.org.
Can't post? Read http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists
