On Jun 13, 2011 12:43pm, Matthew Turk <
matthewturk@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> I hope you'll take the opportunity to read and respond to this email,
>
> even if you're not a heavy-developer, or even a heavy-user, of yt.
>
> Your feedback and contributions would be greatly, greatly appreciated,
>
> particularly as this will help guide where yt development,
>
> community-building and (optimistically) use will go. I know that
>
> sometimes the signal-to-noise on the yt lists can be a bit low, but I
>
> think this is a particularly useful discussion to have.
>
>
>
> A few of us have been brainstorming, in person, in IRC, etc about the
>
> direction yt has been going. There are a number of reasons for doing
>
> this -- to provide focus, to provide an idea of the
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> off-in-the-distance goal, and to have a public statement of what we're
>
> about, which shows ambition, concern for the values that go into a
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> scientific code, and an interest in providing access to that code.
>
> This boils down to coming up with a mission statement, which will help
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> both focus our goals on what we want to provide, as well as describe
>
> those areas we do not want to provide. Much of this is based on the
>
> contents of “The Art of Community” by Jono Bacon, specifically around
>
> page 71 in the PDF available on
www.artofcommunityonline.org/get/ .
>
>
>
> “Mission statements are intended to be consistent and should rarely
>
> change, even if the tasks that achieve that mission change regularly.
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> When building your mission statement, always have its longevity in
>
> mind. Remember, your mission statement is your slam-dunking, audacious
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> goal. For many communities these missions can take decades or even
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> longer to achieve. Their purpose is to not only describe the finish
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> line, but to help the community stay on track.”
>
>
>
> To develop a mission statement, which will act as a precursor to a
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> strategic plan, we need to construct answers to three questions.
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> These will provide the initial basis for a broader mission statement.
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> For reference, here are some “principles” we came up with several
>
> years ago:
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>
>
>
http://yt.enzotools.org/principles.html>
>
>
> As I mentioned above, a few of us have been spitballing answers to
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> these questions, and it has reached the point where we really need to
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> bring this forward, to conduct these discussions in public, to bring
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> some clarity and engagement to the process. Ultimately, once we have
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> sketched out a couple broad goals and bullet points, this can then be
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> distilled into a short, pithy block of text that serves as a "Mission
>
> Statement." Below are some potential bullet points, but I feel
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> strongly that it's important that these get refined and discussed.
>
>
>
> = What is the mission? =
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> * To create a fun, community-led, open source tool for asking and
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> answering astrophysical questions through simulations, analysis and
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> visualization
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> * To create reproducible, cross-code questions and answers from
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> astrophysical data
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> * To construct a consistent language for asking questions of
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> simulation data from many sources
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> * To encourage researchers to participate in constructing a community code
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>
>
> = What are the opportunities and areas of collaboration? =
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> * Development of new tools, new techniques, and adding support for new codes.
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> * Adding components to the GUI
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> * Providing outreach-capable frontends
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> * Improving visualization qualities
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> * Adding new methods of accessing data
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> * Performance analysis & optimization
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> * Deployment to new platforms
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> * Designing new web pages
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> * Writing documentation and recipes
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> * Spreading the word
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> * Support for Cartesian non-astrophysical simulations (weather, earthquakes)
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> * Extension to non-Cartesian coordinate systems
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> * Mentoring new developers
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>
>
> = What are the skills required? =
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> * Thoughtful process
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> * Careful quality control
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> * Ability to communicate
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> * An investment in “the answer”
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> * Eagerness to participate in an open fashion
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>
>
> What other bullets, ideas, inclinations do people have? If we can
>
> start a discussion, maybe we can draft some text. This would
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> certainly help with focusing our strategies for presenting yt to
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> others, directing our development in conjunction with our scientific
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> goals, and collaborating as a community.
>
>
>
> Thanks very much for any thoughts,
>
>
>
> Matt
>
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