Hi Marcel, Casey, Chris, Marcel: The Enzo workshop is at Columbia, in NYC, from Oct 12-15. So after about a week, I think it is becoming clear that there's *some* interest in a workshop, but that perhaps it isn't quite yet to critical mass. For an in-person workshop, either standalone or piggy-backing on a larger workshop/conference, to be a success I think we would need some kind of participation from both new users/developers as well as more experienced participants. I think trying to get this all together this fall might be rushing it a bit. Perhaps we could try for a virtual workshop, or to try to piggy back on a conference sometime later this fall or next year. HIPACC runs a series of conferences and there will also be Enzo workshops next year (at which one could find several yt developers.) I've heard rumors of the Enzo workshops being in CA or CO, which are a bit more centrally located for some attendees. That being said, I think there's enough interest that we could definitely set up (and find a tiny bit of money for) a few small (2-4 people) collaboration "workshops" or meetings. I think it would be great if some day we could have a full workshop / conference, but I think it's still a bit early for that. Thoughts from anyone? -Matt On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Marcel Haas wrote:

Hi all,

I would be very interested in this. It will definitely give me a good start in the direction of trying to get yt compatible with particle-based simulations. I do, however, not have funding available for trips like this from our group's grant. I might try other sources, but money isn't something readily available nowadays… When/where is that Enzo conference?

Cheers, Marcel

-- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Marcel R. Haas Postdoc, Astrophysics Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD http://www.marcelhaas.com mhaas@stsci.edu Address: STScI          3700 San Martin Drive          Baltimore, MD, 21218          Office G17E, tel +1 (410) 338 5012 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: Christopher Moody Reply-To: Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:03:05 -0700 To: yt-dev Subject: [Yt-dev] Interest in a yt Workshop?

Hi all, Earlier today I sent an email on yt-users list mistakenly reporting that there was a yt users' & developers' conference. Now at the moment there isn't one, but after having spoken to Matt a bit, we realized that maybe that's not a bad idea. We came up with a few questions: 1. Virtual or real workshop? 2. What should be the goals? 3. How many people would be interested, and how many could come? 4. Funding sources? We were tentatively considering piggy-backing the Enzo conference, but adding two days before it. Thoughts? chris _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

Hi all, In whatever form we are going to this, I am pretty sure my grant will not have money for travel. If you know of any source for money that I can get some from it will be more than welcome. If the meeting is in NYC, it's very cheap for me (I can get there for $17 by bus, so it's only the stay). CA or CO would make it quite a bit more pricy for me. In Europe, there are some very specific numerical astrophysics funds, but I don't know of any in the US.... On the practical side: I have been looking into using yt, but I think the learning curve is steep-ish for new users (especially if they are not familiar to Python either...). I think I will not be 'motivated' enough to dive deep in, unless there are a couple of days devoted to this. Cheers, Marcel -- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Marcel R. Haas Postdoc, Astrophysics Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD http://www.marcelhaas.com http://www.marcelhaas.com/ mhaas@stsci.edu Address: STScI 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore, MD, 21218 Office G17E, tel +1 (410) 338 5012 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ On 8/15/11 12:26 PM, "Matthew Turk" wrote:

Hi Marcel, Casey, Chris,

Marcel: The Enzo workshop is at Columbia, in NYC, from Oct 12-15.

So after about a week, I think it is becoming clear that there's *some* interest in a workshop, but that perhaps it isn't quite yet to critical mass. For an in-person workshop, either standalone or piggy-backing on a larger workshop/conference, to be a success I think we would need some kind of participation from both new users/developers as well as more experienced participants. I think trying to get this all together this fall might be rushing it a bit.

Perhaps we could try for a virtual workshop, or to try to piggy back on a conference sometime later this fall or next year. HIPACC runs a series of conferences and there will also be Enzo workshops next year (at which one could find several yt developers.) I've heard rumors of the Enzo workshops being in CA or CO, which are a bit more centrally located for some attendees.

That being said, I think there's enough interest that we could definitely set up (and find a tiny bit of money for) a few small (2-4 people) collaboration "workshops" or meetings. I think it would be great if some day we could have a full workshop / conference, but I think it's still a bit early for that.

Thoughts from anyone?

-Matt

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Marcel Haas wrote:

...

Hi all,

I would be very interested in this. It will definitely give me a good start in the direction of trying to get yt compatible with particle-based simulations. I do, however, not have funding available for trips like this from our group's grant. I might try other sources, but money isn't something readily available nowadaysŠ When/where is that Enzo conference?

Cheers, Marcel

-- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Marcel R. Haas Postdoc, Astrophysics Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD http://www.marcelhaas.com mhaas@stsci.edu Address: STScI 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore, MD, 21218 Office G17E, tel +1 (410) 338 5012 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: Christopher Moody Reply-To: Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:03:05 -0700 To: yt-dev Subject: [Yt-dev] Interest in a yt Workshop?

Hi all, Earlier today I sent an email on yt-users list mistakenly reporting that there was a yt users' & developers' conference. Now at the moment there isn't one, but after having spoken to Matt a bit, we realized that maybe that's not a bad idea. We came up with a few questions: 1. Virtual or real workshop? 2. What should be the goals? 3. How many people would be interested, and how many could come? 4. Funding sources? We were tentatively considering piggy-backing the Enzo conference, but adding two days before it. Thoughts? chris _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

Hi all, This thread may now be cold, but I wanted to bring it back up briefly. I've been in touch a little bit with XSEDE personnel as well as a number of yt developers, and we have attempted to brainstorm some ideas, which I sum up here. I think it is now certain that we will not be piggy-backing on the Enzo workshop. The issue is not as much a problem of infrastructure, but rather of weariness on the part of the developers. My feeling initially was that we could do a day and a half workshop, then move directly on to Enzo. It has been impressed upon me that 1) we should have more than a day and a half 2) It would take a *lot* out of the developers to do this. This does not preclude piggybacking on an existing workshop in the future. I see three main opportunities for a workshop: * Piggyback on Enzo or other 'numerical' event which would have a large number of interested people, such as XSEDE * Host an isolated, standalone workshop * Host an online workshop / office hours Marcel's comment about proximity to the NE corner of the country is well-taken; I too would like to be close to home. I think we could also probably find a small amount of money for travel, from some source or another. The idea of a virtual conference is somewhat appealing, but I am not as fond of webinars as others are, and I think we would have to have very short, targeted items if we did that. However, there are resources we could draw upon for webinars. I think the most productive would be option #2, but I am not yet convinced we would be able to support such an endeavor as a community, and I still do not know where we would host it. (Any institutions out there that could?) Another alternative Sam has suggested which I like is instead to host office hours in IRC or G+ or something with video. However, one of the big questions that has come up with respect to a physical workshop is: what would we talk about? I scribbled out a few items this morning that I think could fill a goodly amount of time, which I have included below. My feeling from talking to others is that for it to be useful, we would need both beginner and advanced topics. My list is at the bottom of this email -- after writing this out I kind of came around and felt like there is enough material to fill up a few sessions. Anyway, I'd like to solicit some thoughts on this. Pretty much it comes down to: 1a) Physical (likely spring), virtual (anytime) or no workshop? 1b) If Physical, where? (Specifically, which institutions or regions would you prefer, and could you volunteer your location?) 2) What do you think of the pseudo-agenda below? One last item is that I was the most skeptical about the feasibility of a workshop, and I have been brought around by other developers -- who have impressed upon me that not only could we do this, we really *ought* to do it. If not now, at some point in the future. Thanks everyone, -Matt * Agenda Ideas * = Using yt = - Introduction to yt - Jargon and terminology Installation How to start up How to write a script How to examine a simulation's characteristics Examining individual grids Slicing Projecting Command-line tool - Data handling in yt - How to think of data objects in yt What is a field? (also: my_plugins.py) Basics of select/instantiating a data object How to call and use a derived quantity What DQs and DOs are available? Phase plots (1-, 2-, 3-D) - Visualizing data - Projections, slices, and plot modifications Raw, stripped down plot objects Manually plotting data - Advanced data objects - Accessing attributes of data objects Cutting and subselecting data from objects Creating new data objects 1D and 2D objects Creating fields Clump finding Finding points - Advanced visualization - Writing your own plot callback Fixed resolution buffers - Volume rendering - What is "Volume Rendering"? How to use the camera How to write a transfer function Making animations: camera paths and normalization "Photo-realistic" - Astrophysical Analysis - Halo finding Halo analysis / halo profiler Halo mass functions Spectral energy distribution Star particle analysis Absorption spectra - Large data analysis - How to run in parallel What kind of datasets work well with parallelism? Do's and don'ts of parallel analysis Distributing work - Time series analysis - Full simulation Analysis objects Multi-level Parallelism - Reason - How to use reason How does reason work Advanced features = Advanced yt + Developing yt = - Overview of the yt community - Communication channels Source control Testing Documentation People - Mercurial - What is version control? What is distributed version control? What's a DAG? - Contributing changes - How to commit, share, and notify What to expect when you contribute - The yt testing system - How to write a test How do tests get run? What does it mean to 'pass' a test? - How to write a code frontend - What does yt expect from a simulation output format? What is necessary / expected Simple prototyping How to construct the necessary source files - Fast code and Cython - What is Cython? How do I compile and run Cython code? How to speed it up - Writing parallel code - How does yt use parallelism? What routines are available for parallelism? How to debug parallel code - Interfacing with external code - Raw C api Exporting data objects Cython for easy API usage - yt internals - Parameter file storage and pickling kD-trees Idiomatic yt On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Stephen Skory wrote:

Hi All,

I would be interested in a yt workshop. If it's combined with the Enzo workshop this fall, it would reduce the number of plane tickets. If we wait until spring, it would be even easier for me, as we are thinking about hosting that edition of Enzo workshop here at CU (unless someone else steps forward with more enthusiasm and money).

-- Stephen Skory s@skory.us http://stephenskory.com/ 510.621.3687 (google voice) _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

Can add Denver (Frontier, may not be cheap), Atlanta (Delta), Dallas (AA) to the list of cheap hubs. Wife recommends against Minneapolis for winter visits. From G.S. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 29, 2011, at 1:18 PM, "Brian O'Shea" wrote:

Hi Matt et al.,

After looking at your list, I agree there's definitely enough for a user workshop, if that's your intention (and one could easily piggyback a developer workshop, as per the Enzo summer 2010 workshop).

If you were going to do a standalone workshop, and given that no university that hosts a yt developer is in a particularly central or cheap place, much less a (inexpensive)*(cheap) place, you might think of just picking a city near the middle of the country that is a hub for at least one airline (so that flights are cheap) and then just get a conference room and block of rooms in a hotel near the airport. The main point of the meeting is for everybody to be in the same physical location, and it doesn't really matter where precisely that place is, as long as it's convenient to get to. To this end, some place like Chicago (United, American), Minneapolis (Delta), or Detroit (Delta) might be adequate.

Just a thought...

-Brian

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Matthew Turk wrote: Hi all,

This thread may now be cold, but I wanted to bring it back up briefly. I've been in touch a little bit with XSEDE personnel as well as a number of yt developers, and we have attempted to brainstorm some ideas, which I sum up here.

I think it is now certain that we will not be piggy-backing on the Enzo workshop. The issue is not as much a problem of infrastructure, but rather of weariness on the part of the developers. My feeling initially was that we could do a day and a half workshop, then move directly on to Enzo. It has been impressed upon me that 1) we should have more than a day and a half 2) It would take a *lot* out of the developers to do this.

This does not preclude piggybacking on an existing workshop in the future.

I see three main opportunities for a workshop:

* Piggyback on Enzo or other 'numerical' event which would have a large number of interested people, such as XSEDE * Host an isolated, standalone workshop * Host an online workshop / office hours

Marcel's comment about proximity to the NE corner of the country is well-taken; I too would like to be close to home. I think we could also probably find a small amount of money for travel, from some source or another. The idea of a virtual conference is somewhat appealing, but I am not as fond of webinars as others are, and I think we would have to have very short, targeted items if we did that. However, there are resources we could draw upon for webinars. I think the most productive would be option #2, but I am not yet convinced we would be able to support such an endeavor as a community, and I still do not know where we would host it. (Any institutions out there that could?) Another alternative Sam has suggested which I like is instead to host office hours in IRC or G+ or something with video.

However, one of the big questions that has come up with respect to a physical workshop is: what would we talk about? I scribbled out a few items this morning that I think could fill a goodly amount of time, which I have included below. My feeling from talking to others is that for it to be useful, we would need both beginner and advanced topics. My list is at the bottom of this email -- after writing this out I kind of came around and felt like there is enough material to fill up a few sessions.

Anyway, I'd like to solicit some thoughts on this. Pretty much it comes down to:

1a) Physical (likely spring), virtual (anytime) or no workshop? 1b) If Physical, where? (Specifically, which institutions or regions would you prefer, and could you volunteer your location?) 2) What do you think of the pseudo-agenda below?

One last item is that I was the most skeptical about the feasibility of a workshop, and I have been brought around by other developers -- who have impressed upon me that not only could we do this, we really *ought* to do it. If not now, at some point in the future.

Thanks everyone,

-Matt

* Agenda Ideas *

= Using yt =

- Introduction to yt - Jargon and terminology Installation How to start up How to write a script How to examine a simulation's characteristics Examining individual grids Slicing Projecting Command-line tool

- Data handling in yt - How to think of data objects in yt What is a field? (also: my_plugins.py) Basics of select/instantiating a data object How to call and use a derived quantity What DQs and DOs are available? Phase plots (1-, 2-, 3-D)

- Visualizing data - Projections, slices, and plot modifications Raw, stripped down plot objects Manually plotting data

- Advanced data objects - Accessing attributes of data objects Cutting and subselecting data from objects Creating new data objects 1D and 2D objects Creating fields Clump finding Finding points

- Advanced visualization - Writing your own plot callback Fixed resolution buffers

- Volume rendering - What is "Volume Rendering"? How to use the camera How to write a transfer function Making animations: camera paths and normalization "Photo-realistic"

- Astrophysical Analysis - Halo finding Halo analysis / halo profiler Halo mass functions Spectral energy distribution Star particle analysis Absorption spectra

- Large data analysis - How to run in parallel What kind of datasets work well with parallelism? Do's and don'ts of parallel analysis Distributing work

- Time series analysis - Full simulation Analysis objects Multi-level Parallelism

- Reason - How to use reason How does reason work Advanced features

= Advanced yt + Developing yt =

- Overview of the yt community - Communication channels Source control Testing Documentation People

- Mercurial - What is version control? What is distributed version control? What's a DAG?

- Contributing changes - How to commit, share, and notify What to expect when you contribute

- The yt testing system - How to write a test How do tests get run? What does it mean to 'pass' a test?

- How to write a code frontend - What does yt expect from a simulation output format? What is necessary / expected Simple prototyping How to construct the necessary source files

- Fast code and Cython - What is Cython? How do I compile and run Cython code? How to speed it up

- Writing parallel code - How does yt use parallelism? What routines are available for parallelism? How to debug parallel code

- Interfacing with external code - Raw C api Exporting data objects Cython for easy API usage

- yt internals - Parameter file storage and pickling kD-trees Idiomatic yt

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Stephen Skory wrote:

...

Hi All,

I would be interested in a yt workshop. If it's combined with the Enzo workshop this fall, it would reduce the number of plane tickets. If we wait until spring, it would be even easier for me, as we are thinking about hosting that edition of Enzo workshop here at CU (unless someone else steps forward with more enthusiasm and money).

-- Stephen Skory s@skory.us http://stephenskory.com/ 510.621.3687 (google voice) _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

I would +1 New York if I didn't know how much hotels cost, and how difficult they can be to book. That having been said, if we're going to go to hubs, for maximum cheapness, I would strongly +1 Chicago (because even if we stay at O'hare hotels, the Blue line is right there to go straight to Wicker Park, home of the world's most yt-appropriate coffee shop: http://www.thewormholecoffee.com/_/HOME.html) or +1 Minneapolis, because it is almost as awesome as Chicago. j On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Casey W. Stark wrote:

Not sure how much more expensive it is, but I would +1 a meeting in nyc. I've only been twice and it's easier for Matt, since he would probably prepare a lot of the material for a workshop. I'm not opposed to a workshop in a cheaper place, but I would love to see New York again.

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Geoffrey So wrote:

...

Can add Denver (Frontier, may not be cheap), Atlanta (Delta), Dallas (AA) to the list of cheap hubs. Wife recommends against Minneapolis for winter visits. From G.S. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 29, 2011, at 1:18 PM, "Brian O'Shea" wrote:

Hi Matt et al.,

After looking at your list, I agree there's definitely enough for a user workshop, if that's your intention (and one could easily piggyback a developer workshop, as per the Enzo summer 2010 workshop).

If you were going to do a standalone workshop, and given that no university that hosts a yt developer is in a particularly central or cheap place, much less a (inexpensive)*(cheap) place, you might think of just picking a city near the middle of the country that is a hub for at least one airline (so that flights are cheap) and then just get a conference room and block of rooms in a hotel near the airport.  The main point of the meeting is for everybody to be in the same physical location, and it doesn't really matter where precisely that place is, as long as it's convenient to get to. To this end, some place like Chicago (United, American), Minneapolis (Delta), or Detroit (Delta) might be adequate.

Just a thought...

-Brian

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Hi all,

This thread may now be cold, but I wanted to bring it back up briefly.  I've been in touch a little bit with XSEDE personnel as well as a number of yt developers, and we have attempted to brainstorm some ideas, which I sum up here.

I think it is now certain that we will not be piggy-backing on the Enzo workshop.  The issue is not as much a problem of infrastructure, but rather of weariness on the part of the developers.  My feeling initially was that we could do a day and a half workshop, then move directly on to Enzo.  It has been impressed upon me that 1) we should have more than a day and a half 2) It would take a *lot* out of the developers to do this.

This does not preclude piggybacking on an existing workshop in the future.

I see three main opportunities for a workshop:

 * Piggyback on Enzo or other 'numerical' event which would have a large number of interested people, such as XSEDE  * Host an isolated, standalone workshop  * Host an online workshop / office hours

Marcel's comment about proximity to the NE corner of the country is well-taken; I too would like to be close to home.  I think we could also probably find a small amount of money for travel, from some source or another.  The idea of a virtual conference is somewhat appealing, but I am not as fond of webinars as others are, and I think we would have to have very short, targeted items if we did that. However, there are resources we could draw upon for webinars.  I think the most productive would be option #2, but I am not yet convinced we would be able to support such an endeavor as a community, and I still do not know where we would host it.  (Any institutions out there that could?)  Another alternative Sam has suggested which I like is instead to host office hours in IRC or G+ or something with video.

However, one of the big questions that has come up with respect to a physical workshop is: what would we talk about?  I scribbled out a few items this morning that I think could fill a goodly amount of time, which I have included below.  My feeling from talking to others is that for it to be useful, we would need both beginner and advanced topics.  My list is at the bottom of this email -- after writing this out I kind of came around and felt like there is enough material to fill up a few sessions.

Anyway, I'd like to solicit some thoughts on this.  Pretty much it comes down to:

1a) Physical (likely spring), virtual (anytime) or no workshop? 1b) If Physical, where?  (Specifically, which institutions or regions would you prefer, and could you volunteer your location?) 2) What do you think of the pseudo-agenda below?

One last item is that I was the most skeptical about the feasibility of a workshop, and I have been brought around by other developers -- who have impressed upon me that not only could we do this, we really *ought* to do it.  If not now, at some point in the future.

Thanks everyone,

-Matt

* Agenda Ideas *

= Using yt =

- Introduction to yt - Jargon and terminology Installation How to start up How to write a script How to examine a simulation's characteristics Examining individual grids Slicing Projecting Command-line tool

- Data handling in yt - How to think of data objects in yt What is a field? (also: my_plugins.py) Basics of select/instantiating a data object How to call and use a derived quantity What DQs and DOs are available? Phase plots (1-, 2-, 3-D)

- Visualizing data - Projections, slices, and plot modifications Raw, stripped down plot objects Manually plotting data

- Advanced data objects - Accessing attributes of data objects Cutting and subselecting data from objects Creating new data objects 1D and 2D objects Creating fields Clump finding Finding points

- Advanced visualization - Writing your own plot callback Fixed resolution buffers

- Volume rendering - What is "Volume Rendering"? How to use the camera How to write a transfer function Making animations: camera paths and normalization "Photo-realistic"

- Astrophysical Analysis - Halo finding Halo analysis / halo profiler Halo mass functions Spectral energy distribution Star particle analysis Absorption spectra

- Large data analysis - How to run in parallel What kind of datasets work well with parallelism? Do's and don'ts of parallel analysis Distributing work

- Time series analysis - Full simulation Analysis objects Multi-level Parallelism

- Reason - How to use reason How does reason work Advanced features

= Advanced yt + Developing yt =

- Overview of the yt community - Communication channels Source control Testing Documentation People

- Mercurial - What is version control? What is distributed version control? What's a DAG?

- Contributing changes - How to commit, share, and notify What to expect when you contribute

- The yt testing system - How to write a test How do tests get run? What does it mean to 'pass' a test?

- How to write a code frontend - What does yt expect from a simulation output format? What is necessary / expected Simple prototyping How to construct the necessary source files

- Fast code and Cython - What is Cython? How do I compile and run Cython code? How to speed it up

- Writing parallel code - How does yt use parallelism? What routines are available for parallelism? How to debug parallel code

- Interfacing with external code - Raw C api Exporting data objects Cython for easy API usage

- yt internals - Parameter file storage and pickling kD-trees Idiomatic yt

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Stephen Skory wrote:

...

Hi All,

I would be interested in a yt workshop. If it's combined with the Enzo workshop this fall, it would reduce the number of plane tickets. If we wait until spring, it would be even easier for me, as we are thinking about hosting that edition of Enzo workshop here at CU (unless someone else steps forward with more enthusiasm and money).

-- Stephen Skory s@skory.us http://stephenskory.com/ 510.621.3687 (google voice) _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

_______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al, I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still trying to see if NYC would be viable. Should we aim to try to do this in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December or January? On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 1:52 PM, Sam Skillman wrote:

Hi all,

...

 * Host an online workshop / office hours

...

Another alternative Sam has suggested which I like is instead to host office hours in IRC or G+ or something with video.

I think this could be pretty useful on something like a every few months timescale, or more frequent if they are found to be productive.  If we combined G+ Hangouts (since nearly everyone has gmail) with a code sharing program like http://collabedit.com/ or http://codr.cc/ we could have a developer or two hang out and be available to chat with new/old users about any issues.  I think just publicizing that we'll be hanging out through the yt-users list a few days ahead of time would do the trick.  Anyways, this is a pretty low maintenance option that would allow "face-to-face" interaction with new users.

I like this. If you would be interested in announcing/coordinating/spearheading, I would gladly participate or lead sessions. I'm up for G+, as I have found it very useful. We could also deploy bigbluebutton.org but it's a bit higher buy-in.

As for the physical meeting, I think it would be great to have and advertise to not only the people who are already on the yt-users list but also to people on the teragrid/XSEDE that don't know that they should be interested in yt.

Excellent. Does my plan above sound okay? -Matt

Sam

...

However, one of the big questions that has come up with respect to a physical workshop is: what would we talk about?  I scribbled out a few items this morning that I think could fill a goodly amount of time, which I have included below.  My feeling from talking to others is that for it to be useful, we would need both beginner and advanced topics.  My list is at the bottom of this email -- after writing this out I kind of came around and felt like there is enough material to fill up a few sessions.

Anyway, I'd like to solicit some thoughts on this.  Pretty much it comes down to:

1a) Physical (likely spring), virtual (anytime) or no workshop? 1b) If Physical, where?  (Specifically, which institutions or regions would you prefer, and could you volunteer your location?) 2) What do you think of the pseudo-agenda below?

One last item is that I was the most skeptical about the feasibility of a workshop, and I have been brought around by other developers -- who have impressed upon me that not only could we do this, we really *ought* to do it.  If not now, at some point in the future.

Thanks everyone,

-Matt

* Agenda Ideas *

= Using yt =

- Introduction to yt - Jargon and terminology Installation How to start up How to write a script How to examine a simulation's characteristics Examining individual grids Slicing Projecting Command-line tool

- Data handling in yt - How to think of data objects in yt What is a field? (also: my_plugins.py) Basics of select/instantiating a data object How to call and use a derived quantity What DQs and DOs are available? Phase plots (1-, 2-, 3-D)

- Visualizing data - Projections, slices, and plot modifications Raw, stripped down plot objects Manually plotting data

- Advanced data objects - Accessing attributes of data objects Cutting and subselecting data from objects Creating new data objects 1D and 2D objects Creating fields Clump finding Finding points

- Advanced visualization - Writing your own plot callback Fixed resolution buffers

- Volume rendering - What is "Volume Rendering"? How to use the camera How to write a transfer function Making animations: camera paths and normalization "Photo-realistic"

- Astrophysical Analysis - Halo finding Halo analysis / halo profiler Halo mass functions Spectral energy distribution Star particle analysis Absorption spectra

- Large data analysis - How to run in parallel What kind of datasets work well with parallelism? Do's and don'ts of parallel analysis Distributing work

- Time series analysis - Full simulation Analysis objects Multi-level Parallelism

- Reason - How to use reason How does reason work Advanced features

= Advanced yt + Developing yt =

- Overview of the yt community - Communication channels Source control Testing Documentation People

- Mercurial - What is version control? What is distributed version control? What's a DAG?

- Contributing changes - How to commit, share, and notify What to expect when you contribute

- The yt testing system - How to write a test How do tests get run? What does it mean to 'pass' a test?

- How to write a code frontend - What does yt expect from a simulation output format? What is necessary / expected Simple prototyping How to construct the necessary source files

- Fast code and Cython - What is Cython? How do I compile and run Cython code? How to speed it up

- Writing parallel code - How does yt use parallelism? What routines are available for parallelism? How to debug parallel code

- Interfacing with external code - Raw C api Exporting data objects Cython for easy API usage

- yt internals - Parameter file storage and pickling kD-trees Idiomatic yt

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Stephen Skory wrote:

...

Hi All,

I would be interested in a yt workshop. If it's combined with the Enzo workshop this fall, it would reduce the number of plane tickets. If we wait until spring, it would be even easier for me, as we are thinking about hosting that edition of Enzo workshop here at CU (unless someone else steps forward with more enthusiasm and money).

-- Stephen Skory s@skory.us http://stephenskory.com/ 510.621.3687 (google voice) _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

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+1 On 9/6/11 3:32 PM, j s oishi wrote:

...

trying to see if NYC would be viable. Should we aim to try to do this in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December or January? Sounds reasonable to me.

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+1 for Chicago. I haven't had good pizza in forever. +1 for NYC for the same reason. I'm good for any time in 2012. d. On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Wise wrote:

Hi Matt,

Both cities would work for me.  Personally I prefer January because I don't have to teach next semester.

John

On 09/06/2011 01:57 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al,

I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still trying to see if NYC would be viable.  Should we aim to try to do this in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December or January?

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+1 On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:31 PM, david collins wrote:

+1 for Chicago. I haven't had good pizza in forever.

+1 for NYC for the same reason.

I'm good for any time in 2012.

d.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Wise wrote:

...

Hi Matt,

Both cities would work for me. Personally I prefer January because I don't have to teach next semester.

John

On 09/06/2011 01:57 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al,

I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still trying to see if NYC would be viable. Should we aim to try to do this in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December or January?

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Something else to keep in mind. There is probably a nonzero number of people who will be going to AAS, which is January 8-12 in Austin. On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

Awesome. Let's try for Chicago, and it sounds like John wants January, which I would actually kind of prefer (Chicago and NYC are both so beautiful in the Winter!) and then everyone else is largely open to. I'll reopen discussions in mid- to late-October, after I take a look at what is available during those periods.

...

+1

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:31 PM, david collins wrote:

...

+1 for Chicago. I haven't had good pizza in forever.

+1 for NYC for the same reason.

I'm good for any time in 2012.

d.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Wise wrote:

...

Hi Matt,

Both cities would work for me. Personally I prefer January because I don't have to teach next semester.

John

On 09/06/2011 01:57 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al,

I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still trying to see if NYC would be viable. Should we aim to try to do

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Britton Smith wrote: this

...

...

...

...

in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December or January?

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Alright, so it looks at this point like most people on this list are in favor of having a workshop sometime next year and in a place that is cheap for people to get to. As discussed earlier in this thread, it would be good to start this whole thing with a users workshop to get more people involved and to get them turned into developers if we can. I think the next step is to see how interested users would be in attending such a thing. I will do this now and we can pick up again once we see what users are feeling. Britton On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Sam Skillman wrote:

I'm also good with Chicago/NY (more towards Chicago). That said, if enough people are going to Austin, would there be any point in tacking on to the end of that? We might be able to pick up more new folks that are around for AAS. Anyways, just a thought. As I said I'm good with pretty much anywhere.

Sam

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Britton Smith wrote:

...

Something else to keep in mind. There is probably a nonzero number of people who will be going to AAS, which is January 8-12 in Austin.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Awesome. Let's try for Chicago, and it sounds like John wants January, which I would actually kind of prefer (Chicago and NYC are both so beautiful in the Winter!) and then everyone else is largely open to. I'll reopen discussions in mid- to late-October, after I take a look at what is available during those periods.

...

+1

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:31 PM, david collins wrote:

...

+1 for Chicago. I haven't had good pizza in forever.

+1 for NYC for the same reason.

I'm good for any time in 2012.

d.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Wise wrote:

...

Hi Matt,

Both cities would work for me. Personally I prefer January because

I

...

...

don't have to teach next semester.

John

On 09/06/2011 01:57 PM, Matthew Turk wrote: > > Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al, > > I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. > Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still > trying to see if NYC would be viable. Should we aim to try to do

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Britton Smith wrote: this

...

...

...

> in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December or > January?

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I had two dumb ideas: Do y'all think it might work as a splinter meeting off the winter AAS workshop? As Britton said, a lot of people might be going to that, and making it a splinter meeting on Sunday not only allow us to save on travel but also get publicity. I was talking with someone here who went to a numerical workshop, and they handed out thumbdrives with full linux distros on them, so everyone had the same environment. If there's money for something like that, it might be fun to have a full yt stack on thumb drives to minimize the startup cost at the workshop, if we want an interactive portion for new users. d. On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Britton Smith wrote:

Alright, so it looks at this point like most people on this list are in favor of having a workshop sometime next year and in a place that is cheap for people to get to.  As discussed earlier in this thread, it would be good to start this whole thing with a users workshop to get more people involved and to get them turned into developers if we can.  I think the next step is to see how interested users would be in attending such a thing.  I will do this now and we can pick up again once we see what users are feeling.

Britton

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Sam Skillman wrote:

...

I'm also good with Chicago/NY (more towards Chicago).  That said, if enough people are going to Austin, would there be any point in tacking on to the end of that?  We might be able to pick up more new folks that are around for AAS.  Anyways, just a thought.  As I said I'm good with pretty much anywhere. Sam

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Britton Smith wrote:

...

Something else to keep in mind.  There is probably a nonzero number of people who will be going to AAS, which is January 8-12 in Austin.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Awesome.  Let's try for Chicago, and it sounds like John wants January, which I would actually kind of prefer (Chicago and NYC are both so beautiful in the Winter!) and then everyone else is largely open to.  I'll reopen discussions in mid- to late-October, after I take a look at what is available during those periods.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Britton Smith wrote:

...

+1

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:31 PM, david collins wrote:

...

+1 for Chicago.  I haven't had good pizza in forever.

+1 for NYC for the same reason.

I'm good for any time in 2012.

d.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Wise wrote: > Hi Matt, > > Both cities would work for me.  Personally I prefer January because > I > don't > have to teach next semester. > > John > > On 09/06/2011 01:57 PM, Matthew Turk wrote: >> >> Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al, >> >> I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. >> Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still >> trying to see if NYC would be viable.  Should we aim to try to do >> this >> in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December >> or >> January? > > _______________________________________________ > Yt-dev mailing list > Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org > http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org >

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...

I was talking with someone here who went to a numerical workshop, and they handed out thumbdrives with full linux distros on them, so everyone had the same environment. If there's money for something like that, it might be fun to have a full yt stack on thumb drives to minimize the startup cost at the workshop, if we want an interactive portion for new users.

This is a very good idea. Maybe we could try it with Amazon EC2? I have had success building an AMI in the past, and it's very easy to do... although not free, and not local. I do though like the idea of thumb drives... and I can't imagine it wouldn't be an interactive workshop!

To this end, somebody at MSU (Dirk Colbry) has taken to doing precisely the same thing for people who go to Teragrid/XSEDE/whateverthehell workshops here at Michigan State. He loves it and is very fond of doing it. If this is something that seems interesting to people, I can ask him about the setup, and what it would take to make a yt-specific one. I get the impression it isn't that hard! Brian

http://aas.org/meetings/winter_session_organizer_deadlines.php

Although I do agree, it would be nice, even if it is a bit late.  (One point twenty one gigawatts?!)  The other option if we wanted to

We're too late for workshops, but (unless I'm reading something worng) we have until december 1 for a splinter meeting (to be honest I can't tell what the difference is between the two, but I don't believe in following rules all that closely.) Southwest goes to Austin, which is my preferred airline. So I could +1 Austin with ease. I haven't had a good slice of hipster in years.

This is a very good idea.  Maybe we could try it with Amazon EC2?  I have had success building an AMI in the past, and it's very easy to do...  although not free, and not local.  I do though like the idea of thumb drives...  and I can't imagine it wouldn't be an interactive workshop!

That might be rad, if the network connection is reasonable-- If we had 50 users for an 8 hour meeting and can swing the cheap option, that's only $35. Show me 50 thumb drives for $35 and I'll show you 2 thumb drives and a pile of plastic. Also windows users could get on with putty, if there are any of those.

-Matt

...

d.

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Britton Smith wrote:

...

Alright, so it looks at this point like most people on this list are in favor of having a workshop sometime next year and in a place that is cheap for people to get to.  As discussed earlier in this thread, it would be good to start this whole thing with a users workshop to get more people involved and to get them turned into developers if we can.  I think the next step is to see how interested users would be in attending such a thing.  I will do this now and we can pick up again once we see what users are feeling.

Britton

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Sam Skillman wrote:

...

I'm also good with Chicago/NY (more towards Chicago).  That said, if enough people are going to Austin, would there be any point in tacking on to the end of that?  We might be able to pick up more new folks that are around for AAS.  Anyways, just a thought.  As I said I'm good with pretty much anywhere. Sam

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Britton Smith wrote:

...

Something else to keep in mind.  There is probably a nonzero number of people who will be going to AAS, which is January 8-12 in Austin.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Matthew Turk wrote:

...

Awesome.  Let's try for Chicago, and it sounds like John wants January, which I would actually kind of prefer (Chicago and NYC are both so beautiful in the Winter!) and then everyone else is largely open to.  I'll reopen discussions in mid- to late-October, after I take a look at what is available during those periods.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Britton Smith wrote: > +1 > > On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:31 PM, david collins > wrote: >> >> +1 for Chicago.  I haven't had good pizza in forever. >> >> +1 for NYC for the same reason. >> >> I'm good for any time in 2012. >> >> d. >> >> On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:26 PM, John Wise >> wrote: >> > Hi Matt, >> > >> > Both cities would work for me.  Personally I prefer January because >> > I >> > don't >> > have to teach next semester. >> > >> > John >> > >> > On 09/06/2011 01:57 PM, Matthew Turk wrote: >> >> >> >> Hi Sam, Jeff, Brian, GS et al, >> >> >> >> I like the idea of an in person workshop in a town with a hub. >> >> Chicago would work well for a couple reasons, although I am still >> >> trying to see if NYC would be viable.  Should we aim to try to do >> >> this >> >> in the Spring, and then backburner discussion until, say, December >> >> or >> >> January? >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Yt-dev mailing list >> > Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org >> > http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Sent from my computer. >> _______________________________________________ >> Yt-dev mailing list >> Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org >> http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Yt-dev mailing list > Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org > http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org > > _______________________________________________ Yt-dev mailing list Yt-dev@lists.spacepope.org http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org

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I'm sure many of us have spare USBs laying around, I still have my ICER one, and a 32GB one just in case. Just have to let everyone know to be ready to format it before anything is put on them. From G.S. On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Brian O'Shea wrote:

...

This is a very good idea. Maybe we could try it with Amazon EC2? I

...

have had success building an AMI in the past, and it's very easy to do... although not free, and not local. I do though like the idea of thumb drives... and I can't imagine it wouldn't be an interactive workshop!

That might be rad, if the network connection is reasonable-- If we had 50 users for an 8 hour meeting and can swing the cheap option, that's only $35. Show me 50 thumb drives for $35 and I'll show you 2 thumb drives and a pile of plastic. Also windows users could get on with putty, if there are any of those.

To pile onto this, if we choose to go that way I can get MSU to donate a big pile of thumb drives, though they will have some combination of MSU, ICER and Physics Department logos slapped onto them... :-)

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Dave, you're right, I misread.  How much time can we get?  I'm not sure what the limits are for the remaining types-of-meetings available.  There are a few other venues we could explore in Austin, as well.

I had nixed it first, too, since I was looking for workshops. I'll email the contact person and see what the skinny is.

I'm still personally mostly in favor of EC2, I think, because I believe it will be easier for people to integrate into their existing workflow -- sshing into EC2 is probably a bit less invasive than rebooting with a USB drive.  I might be off-base though, and it would be less robust for network interruptions.

I think EC2 is definitely a useful idea. Can you have a setup where everyone gets their own accounts, but the environment is centrally visible? Also if one is allowed to run screen on ec2, then network interuuptions aren't _that_ big a deal... Would it be possible to have just the yt stack installed on a thumb drive, and not a whole linux distro, so users mount the drive then do something like "source /thumbdrive/ytsetup" to set up their environment? I'm not familiar enough with the dependencies of yt. I agree that a full reboot is a hassle, esp. for those of using osx (unless that's something that can be done...)

I think the idea is to have them pre-prepared to save time and to boot onto, in case of network issues.  I don't know how we would integrate that with mirroring onto personal USBs.

-Matt

...

From G.S.

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Brian O'Shea wrote:

...

...

...

This is a very good idea.  Maybe we could try it with Amazon EC2?  I have had success building an AMI in the past, and it's very easy to do...  although not free, and not local.  I do though like the idea of thumb drives...  and I can't imagine it wouldn't be an interactive workshop!

That might be rad, if the network connection is reasonable-- If we had 50 users for an 8 hour meeting and can swing the cheap option, that's only $35.   Show me 50 thumb drives for $35 and I'll show you 2 thumb drives and a pile of plastic.  Also windows users could get on with putty, if there are any of those.

To pile onto this, if we choose to go that way I can get MSU to donate a big pile of thumb drives, though they will have some combination of MSU, ICER and Physics Department logos slapped onto them...  :-)

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