On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Ole Weidner <oweidner@cct.lsu.edu> wrote:
All,
On Aug 16, 2011, at 5:58 AM, Andre Merzky wrote:
Hi Sylvain,
On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Sylvain Reynaud <Sylvain.Reynaud@in2p3.fr> wrote:
On 8/8/11 11:20 , "Sylvain Reynaud"<Sylvain.Reynaud@in2p3.fr> wrote:
Yes, we are still very interested in discussing that topic. I put in CC Julien (in holidays this week) because he has developed JPySAGA and he knows Python far better than I do.
Good. As said, we are interested particularly in JSAGA because of gLite support. Our language choices are Java and Python, so I already proposed to assist in sorting out the python differences between the various implementations.
I know that Julien is also very concerned with having "pythonic" APIs, and I think he would be probably interested in contributing to select the most "pythonic" parts of each SAGA Python binding, in order to converge on a SAGA binding as "pythonic" as possible.
Andre, do you think this would be the right way to synchronize the implementations, or is it already too late to do such changes in the binding (considering the existing SAGA-python users community) ?
Honestly, our group has mixed feelings. Of course it would be nice if the python bindings were unified, but we are also somewhat scared of breaking code which is in heavy use already, since years. It would have been much better to sync the python bindings way earlier - but well, that is just wishful thinking... ;-)
We can always create an alternative set of Python bindings for our SAGA implementation (i.e., forking the current python bindings & change the API). Changing the existing API is not an option due to strong application dependencies.
Developing an alternative set of Python bindings would only require minimal effort on our side. Once we have reached that point, we can still think about a gentle, non-intrusive migration strategy.
+1
If we find reasonable technical procedures to mitigate the transition pain for our end users, we would certainly be willing to migrate to a common binding. The biggest motivation for us would be if (a) our users could seamlessly experiment with other SAGA implementations, and (b) we could that way increase the acceptance of SAGA as a standardized and widely available solution, and thus increase adoption in general.
My $0.02, I'd love to hear other people's opinion on that topic (Ole? Shantenu?).
BTW, in terms of group procedure: we already came to a consensus about what python bindings are to be standardized as OGF specification.
Andre, could you send around a link to that document, please? If all parties can agree with the binding specification, I'd say we should just go with it. If not, I think it would be worth it to have another iteration.
I checked the respective mail threads, and the last agreement was to adopt the VU Python Bindings. If I am reading Sylvain's mail correctly, those are the ones used by his group, so the complains about being non-pythonic (factory style) apply. I do not really know where to find their latest version, google only came up with http://gforge.cs.vu.nl/gf/project/pysaga/ (amongst a lot of noise) - the file section there lists a release from April 2010. I'm afraid that paragraph alone says a lot about our affairs :-( Sylvain, do you have any more up-to-date pointers? Best, Andre.
My $0.02.
Cheers, Ole
From this thread, and some offline discussions, it seems that the opinions though vary on that topic. We can certainly re-iterate the python bindings on that level, but I would hate to see us spending another year on it.
Since most interested parties are in Lyon, I'll try to book another set of sessions, so that we can come to a closure on the specification side, and can focus on the technical aspects, if that's ok with everybody...
Best, Andre.
PS.: you are likely aware thet OGF-33 is being held n Lyon, in mid September. Do you plan to attend, by any chance?
Yes, I am already registered. I really have no excuse for not doing the "travel" since I can see the place of the conference through the window of my desktop! ;-)
Note that I will also be in Lyon, so I would be happy to meet up with you.
I will be happy too.
Regards, Sylvain
Regards,
Mark
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