Hi all, I also think this is a really important conversation to have. For now, I'd just like to respond to the mission part of your three sets of bullet points. Perhaps it can be broken down into the mission for the code and the mission for the community. - To create an open-source tool that does the following: - allows one to ask astrophysical questions of simulation data independent of the code used to produce that data. - provides direct access to the physically meaningful data - physical units, not code units; physical objects (spheres, disks, halos, clumps, etc.), not i/o based objects (grids, hierarchies) - To provide a place to create and share analysis codes, recipes, and other things that can be helpful to others seeking to answer similar scientific questions. Britton On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 2:33 PM, wrote:

Hi Matt,

Maybe this goes a bit beyond yt, but one of the main feelings I get from yt is a strong urge to promote open science in general. I think this might fall under the "areas of collaboration", but if researchers can share their simulation/analysis/visualization scripts and/or data then there is a feeling of open and reproducible research. I think yt has started down this path with public storage and git repos that can be openly branched and shared, etc. One area where this sort of thing might be out of the scope of yt is the microphysics used in simulations - there are very few, to my knowledge, public repos of conductivity, EOS, opacity, etc. with which to promote open science.

Just my $0.02

Chris

On Jun 13, 2011 12:43pm, Matthew Turk 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

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

scientific code, and an interest in providing access to that code.

This boils down to coming up with a mission statement, which will help

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.

When building your mission statement, always have its longevity in

mind. Remember, your mission statement is your slam-dunking, audacious

goal. For many communities these missions can take decades or even

longer to achieve. Their purpose is to not only describe the finish

line, but to help the community stay on track.”

To develop a mission statement, which will act as a precursor to a

strategic plan, we need to construct answers to three questions.

These will provide the initial basis for a broader mission statement.

For reference, here are some “principles” we came up with several

years ago:

http://yt.enzotools.org/principles.html

As I mentioned above, a few of us have been spitballing answers to

these questions, and it has reached the point where we really need to

bring this forward, to conduct these discussions in public, to bring

some clarity and engagement to the process. Ultimately, once we have

sketched out a couple broad goals and bullet points, this can then be

distilled into a short, pithy block of text that serves as a "Mission

Statement." Below are some potential bullet points, but I feel

strongly that it's important that these get refined and discussed.

= What is the mission? =

* To create a fun, community-led, open source tool for asking and

answering astrophysical questions through simulations, analysis and

visualization

* To create reproducible, cross-code questions and answers from

astrophysical data

* To construct a consistent language for asking questions of

simulation data from many sources

* To encourage researchers to participate in constructing a community code

= What are the opportunities and areas of collaboration? =

* Development of new tools, new techniques, and adding support for new codes.

* Adding components to the GUI

* Providing outreach-capable frontends

* Improving visualization qualities

* Adding new methods of accessing data

* Performance analysis & optimization

* Deployment to new platforms

* Designing new web pages

* Writing documentation and recipes

* Spreading the word

* Support for Cartesian non-astrophysical simulations (weather, earthquakes)

* Extension to non-Cartesian coordinate systems

* Mentoring new developers

= What are the skills required? =

* Thoughtful process

* Careful quality control

* Ability to communicate

* An investment in “the answer”

* Eagerness to participate in an open fashion

What other bullets, ideas, inclinations do people have? If we can

start a discussion, maybe we can draft some text. This would

certainly help with focusing our strategies for presenting yt to

others, directing our development in conjunction with our scientific

goals, and collaborating as a community.

Thanks very much for any thoughts,

Matt

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