Minutes of the May 7 Offline Meeting

["Mark M. Ito" <marki@jlab.org>]

They are posted at 
http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/May_6%2C_2009_Software 
and attached as text.

May 6, 2009 Software Minutes

   Present: Mark Ito (chair), Simon Taylor, Jim Stewart, Sasha Somov, Beni
   Zihlmann, Eugene Chudakov

Review of [24]Minutes of April 22 Meeting

   We generated a list of work items at the last meeting. If folks have
   more ideas please send them to [25]Mark.

Cerenkov in the Default Geometry

   We discussed the fact, recently pointed out by Sascha, that we have a
   full Cerenkov detector in the default version of the detector geometry.
   Beni recalled for us that when the Cerenkov was de-scoped, there was a
   decision made to leave it in the Monte Carlo to act as a proxy for the
   material of some future particle ID detector. Now that we know the
   initial version of the detector will not have such a device, we agreed
   it was better to drop it in the default geometry. It could be restored
   for special studies trivially (i. e., uncomment to restore). Sascha
   will make the change.

New Monte Carlo Features

   Sascha showed a [28]slide describing features he has added recently to
   our Monte Carlo system:
     * FFREAD cards for controlling:
          + supression of events with no detector hits
          + EM shower generation in the beam collimator
     * Adding start counter truth information to the data model
     * Adding a command-line option to genr8_2_hddm to allow a range for
       the z-vertex position

   Sascha mentioned that this last feature could be added for the particle
   gun as a new FFREAD card. We agreed that this is a worthwhile project
   for him.

   Next we got into a discussion on documentation. Several folks thought
   that we should have semi-formal manuals for key programs/systems in
   software. We agreed to discuss this further at some future meeting.

CDC Geometry Change in Monte Carlo

   Beni described his recent work to bring the simulation into
   registration with the plans for construction. See [30]his wiki page for
   details. Note that this page links to a few drawings of the current
   geometry.

   There was a question about the thickness of aluminum in the straws and
   how it compares with reality. Beni will look into this.

Generating Data Model Code during Builds

   We went back to this topic, originally discussed at the [32]March 11,
   2009 Software meeting. Mark reviewed the arguments and reported on
   recent discussions with Richard Jones. See his [33]wiki page for
   details. We decided to have the HDDM template file, namely event.xml,
   act as the authoritative and have all related files derived from it. In
   this scheme there is no need to use the Xalan package, as long as the
   XML schema is not required. Other components of our software do not
   depend on the schema at present.

   Retrieved from
   http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/May_6%2C_2009_Software

References

  24. http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/April_22%2C_2009_Software
  25. http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/User:Marki
  28. http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/meetings/software_slides/2009/soft_features.ppt
  30. http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/Geometry
  32. http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/March_11%2C_2009_Software
  33. http://www.jlab.org/Hall-D/software/wiki/index.php/Building_HDDM_support_software