Minutes January 29, 2002
Attendance: Joanne Bogart, Heather Kelly, Traudl Hansl-Kozanecka, Bob Schaefer, Alex Schlessinger, Karl Young
Meeting Time:
The Data Structures Task Force will begin meeting on alternate Tuesdays at
8:30 AM PST. We share some members. We decided to continue meeting
on Tuesdays at 8:30 AM PST on alternating Tuesdays.
CyberDocs
Traudl has contacted Richard concerning the use of CyberDocs to store
external documentation that provides configuration management. It sounds
as though it can be difficult to learn how to use CyberDocs. Traudl will
look into this.
External Libraries and Tools
Latest Checkout Package Versions
Karl has created a new web page to store the current versions of external
libraries and tools in use by the SAS group:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~kyoung/CurrentVersions.htm
Here is the link to the Latest Package tags
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/ground/software/LatestPackages/index.htm
This page is now linked into the main SAS web page.
Karl welcomes comments and suggestions.
Templates Package
Traudl is working on an update to the templates package. She will tag
the package when she is finished.
Web Documentation Recommendations
We started to discuss potential recommendations for web documentation.
Web Page Storage Location
We will recommend that web pages not reside within a user's personal
space. Pages will be stored on the SLAC SAS web or within a collaborating
institute's web area. Karl and Joanne noted that we should allow web pages
stored within the public web space - such as the unix area at SLAC. As
Karl noted the automated scripts used to keep some pages up to date, provide
their output within this public area.
Using the SLAC SAS web
The document will include a section describing how to gain access to the
SLAC SAS web. One needs access to a Windows machine and Front Page and has
a SLAC Windows account OR one could obtain a Citrix account and use Front Page
through this mechanism. It is unclear whether Citrix will provide a fast
enough connection to make it worthwhile for users to attempt using Front Page in
this manner. Heather will try it out from a UNIX account and see how well
it does.
Last Modifed Date and Time
Hans had requested that we mandate the inclusion of a last modified date
and time at the bottom of each web page - this will provide readers with a sense
for how up to date the contents are. He also recommended that we use the
ISO 8601 standard for date and time:
yyyy-mm-dd hh::mm::ss
Joanne mentioned that if we make this recommendation - we should include
instructions for how to do this. Apparently, the mechanism for doing this
depends upon the web server used. We will provide examples within the
document and mention that the precise mechanism will depend upon the web server.
Removal and Archiving of Web Pages
As was mentioned by Mark last week - we wish to discourage the removal
of pertinent information from the web. On the other hand, we must also insure
that obsolete information is not accessible. Karl mentioned that there are
some tools available that will archive a web. We also wondered about back ups of
the web. Karl accepted an action item where he will look into the options.
Heather mentioned that her current experience with the Gaudi web pages. We
currently have a number of pages concerning Gaudi v7 - and we need new pages for
Gaudi v9. The current solution is to store "old" Gaudi v7 in one
place - in a directory called gaudi_v7 and the "new" pages in a folder
called gaudi_v9.
Web Reviews
Periodically, the SAS web should be reviewed to check for broken links
and to insure that the content is still up to date. How and when these
reviews will occur is left for future consideration for now.
Versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape
Toby had asked that we specify which versions of Internet Explorer and
Netscape will be supported by our web pages. Possibly IE >=5.0 and
Netscape > 4.7
$Header$ Keyword
We continued this discussion started via e-mail.
On the one side, it is felt that the important bit of information are the tags -
not the RCS headers.
On the other, it is felt that it is useful to have some version information
embedded within the executables themselves.
It was decided to pursue some mechanism that stores the package tags. This
issue will be discussed at an upcoming core software meeting.
Action Items:
Traudl - will continue learning about CyberDocs
Heather - update acdRecon to comform to the new code documentation recommendations. She will also attempt to use Citrix to use Front Page.
Joanne - will provide an example of an HTML comment used to tell a web server to update a date and time stamp on a web page
Karl - will look into archiving tools to use for the web