ATLAS Offline Software Technical Group 

This page is no longer maintained. Large parts of it are out of date. The Technical Group has been inactive since end 2000.

Mandate and Organisation

The ATLAS offline software technical group is an open forum for discussion of technical issues pertaining to configuration management, programming support, external software, infrastructure, tools, testing, documentation etc.
The technical group consults with other groups such the Quality Control Group, the Database Group  etc, depending on the issues to be addressed. The technical group may make decisions on  "strictly technical" issues. It "reports" to the CSG and makes recommendations for decisions that involve policy or are likely to have a big impact.
The group consists of ATLAS offline software developers and communicates via the atlas-sw-developers@atlas-lb.cern.ch and/or the atlas-support@atlas-lb.cern.ch mailing lists (see also atlas-sw-developers and  atlas-support  mail archives).
The group is "convened" by M. Stavrianakou and although there is no official membership, a "core team" of experts may be consulted in order to prepare discussions and proposals or to proceed with implementation. If possible, a "referee" or moderator is assigned  to each issue.
Live discussions may be scheduled before, during or after the weekly meetings.

Open technical issues
 
#  Issue  Submitted by Refereed by Date Last update Status
5 Documentation for users and developers M. Stavrianakou H. T. Phillips 09.02.2000 26.06.2000 work in progress;
in the meantime, see Introduction to ATLAS Offline Computing, ATLAS offline software developers and librarian's page and Atlas Software FAQ
6 Setup scripts for ATLAS offline D. Candlin   - 08.02.2000 18.09.2000 first iteration for general environment essentially completed;
see  ATLAS Offline Software Environment page
9 Support for Java J. Hrivnac S. Fisher, J. Hrivnac 10.02.2000 26.09.2000 first iteration completed; see WWW page by S. Fisher and J. Hrivnac

Miscellaneous technical items
 
Issue  Summary Status
Nag_C developers licences needed to access Nag_C headers and libs from user programs being addressed by N. McCubbin and NCB;
see mail from N. McCubbin  and replies in atlas-sw mailing list
Solaris 7 CC 6  certification of physics application softwarein progress see Certification of Physics Application Software
Open Inventor licences needed for 3D graphics 
OI = de facto standard for 3D-graphics in C++		 not yet actively addressed;
licence currently available via Iris Explorer;
product recently Open Sourced;
consult in ATLAS: J. Hrivnac
IT plans clarify with IT plans for AFS, mail and ACB support, as well as status of and plans for SDT support addressed in context of regular ATLAS-IT meetings;
see atlas-support  mail archive
Software server, repository organisation and release issues
  • tagging and release policy: domains and top level  packages
  • dedicated machines and disks for nightly build and regular releases
  • centrally run ATLAS CVS and Software Server
    		•
  • addressed in CSG meeting; ATLAS Offline Release Policy in place
  • addressed in context of COCOTIME 2001 request
  • ATLAS Software Server now supported by Steve Fisher/RAL
  • issue also addressed partly in context of COCOTIME 2001 request
    		•
    Build and Release Tool
  • SRT support, improvements and maintenance
  • ART evaluations
    		•
  • SRT upgrade (new version) being prepared by L.Tuura;  SRT support volunteer "identified" 09.2000
  • on going; see ART page
    		•
    Remedy (Error Reporting Tool) to replace obsolete GNATS initial work by H. Meinhard; taken over by S. Fisher

    Closed/Archived technical issues
     
    #  Issue  Submitted by Date  Status
    1 Naming conventions and namespaces, Package names H.T. Phillips  08.02.2000 addressed in Coding Rules document by QC group
    2 Usage of shared libraries, recommendations/scripts  S. Sivoklokov, 
    D. Rousseau    		 08.02.2000 addressed in context of issue 5
    3 Garbage collection H. T. Phillips 08.02.2000 to be addressed by Architecture
    4 External software and how to use with ATLAS software D. Candlin 08.02.2000 addressed in context of issue 5
    7 Exceptions A. Dell'Acqua 09.02.2000 to be addressed by Architecture; partly covered in Coding Rules by QC group
    8 Logging R.D. Schaffer 10.02.2000 to be addressed by Architecture

    (last modified by Maya Stavrianakou on 26.09.2000)