[yt-dev] Merging the unit refactor

Nathan Goldbaum nathan12343 at gmail.com
Fri Feb 7 11:37:40 PST 2014


On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 11:33 AM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>

What about the stumbling blocks document?

>>
>> 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
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> 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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