[yt-dev] Merging the unit refactor

[Matthew Turk]

On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Nathan Goldbaum <nathan12343 at gmail.com> wrote:
> One issue with recommending that people stay on the current yt-3.0 tip
> is that there are a number of bugs (the most serious are related to
> field detection), that are fixed in unitrefactor.
>
> The API changes in 3.0 we've been planning for a long time (see the
> YTEP repo) were always going to be a bit painful and I think we're
> finally at the point where that starts to become a concern.
>
> So long as there is a big docs push on a relatively short timescale,
> I'd be +1 on the approach Matt suggests.
>
> Matt, where is the documentation you are Britton have started work on?
>  I don't see it in MatthewTurk/yt.

MatthewTurk/yt-units at 30docs

>
> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 11:21 AM, John Zuhone <jzuhone at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I guess I see both sides of this. Part of me wants to say that we
>> should mark a "stable-ish" alpha/beta/wherever we are version of 3.0
>> right before the unit refactoring, and encourage people who use 3.0
>> already to stop there for now. I suppose the objection to this is what
>> happens when bugs in that version are found, but we also have to think
>> about fixing potentially any bug now in light of the new units
>> functionality. I'm not myself going to be doing any development from
>> this point that doesn't assume the new field system and units, so I
>> don't have to change it later.
>>
>> However, I am not particularly religious on what direction we should
>> go with this, so count me as a solid 0.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> I've done a lot of thinking and talking with people about the idea of
>>> merging the units stuff into the mainline yt 3.0 branch.
>>>
>>> There are clear advantages to doing this: people who want to use SPH
>>> smoothing would be able to get it from the primary repository, PRs
>>> could be done through that repository, and the access to new things
>>> would be considerably easier.  More public development and review
>>> could happen; while the development already *is* public, it's out of
>>> view in my fork of yt.  This is not productive.
>>>
>>> But the development of yt is not the point of yt.  Using yt to enable
>>> scientific discovery is the point of yt.
>>>
>>> In many ways, the units refactor will enable more scientific
>>> discovery.  But it's not ready.  There are people using yt-3.0
>>> *already* (prime example: http://nickolas1.com/d3test2/ ) to do really
>>> cool science in ways that they can't with 2.x.  And they're doing this
>>> with a yt that *mostly* works like the 2.x branch, with the same field
>>> names and units and all of that, so the docs *mostly* apply.
>>>
>>> The units refactor, if merged in, would pull the rug *completely* out
>>> from under them.  And there's no safety net.  There's a web of YTEPs
>>> and PR comments and notebooks posted to mailing lists, but there's no
>>> place they can go and see, "Hey, this worked before, why isn't it
>>> now?"  And that's not okay.
>>>
>>> I've long put off writing documentation, and honestly, I could come up
>>> with lots more reasons to put it off.  But I started on Wednesday
>>> actually writing things down in earnest, and I think that needs to be
>>> the next big push, which I am committed to doing.  Yeah, it's not that
>>> fun always.  Especially since things *are* still changing.  But it's
>>> not fair -- and it is certainly not in the spirit of *extreme empathy*
>>> -- to just change things.
>>>
>>> But I also want new development to continue.  And so I want a balance
>>> to be struck.  I'd like to enumerate the items that are necessary for
>>> documentation so that we can merge it in.  I think these are as
>>> follows:
>>>
>>>  * All notebooks should be ported to the 3.0 docs and unit-refactor style
>>>  * API documentation has to be able to be compiled
>>>  * At a *bare* minimum, a list of stumbling blocks has to be included
>>> for moving to 3.0.  Britton and I have started on this and made very
>>> good progress.
>>>  * We need a bookmark or tag to be included in the repo *pre*-refactor.
>>>  * Cookbook recipes must work (I think they mostly do now)
>>>
>>> Things I don't think we need to do before merging:
>>>
>>>  * Completely update 100% of the narrative docs
>>>  * Document how to add smoothing fields, as I believe this API is in flux
>>>  * Describe the underlying methods in great, extensive detail for the
>>> new frontends
>>>  * A full, complete review of the docs like we did in advance of 2.6
>>>
>>> As a thought, why don't we treat documentation the way we treat code?
>>> Within the project, it seems we're comfortable committing and
>>> submitting work-in-progress code, but not docs.  In the past, perhaps
>>> this was because the PRs and repos were separate.  They aren't
>>> anymore.
>>>
>>> How does this proposal for the merge sound?  Please render an opinion,
>>> as I'd like to have this settled before the early part of next week.
>>>
>>> Thanks everyone,
>>>
>>> Matt
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> yt-dev mailing list
>>> yt-dev at lists.spacepope.org
>>> http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> John ZuHone
>>
>> Postdoctoral Researcher
>> NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
>>
>> jzuhone at gmail.com
>> john.zuhone at nasa.gov
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