TLC Meeting February 13, 2008

The TLC met by teleconference on February 13, 2008 at 1:30 PM EST.

Agenda

1. What can/should we expect Windows users to have installed?
2. Nightly Build issues.
3. Laci: Should we host the Mittelman MILP test set?
4. BuildTools issues and releases

Notes

1. The question was raised as to what we should expect a user (who just runs precompiled binaries in the hopefully near future, but for now has to compile) and a developer (who does need for whatever reason to compile her own libs) to have on her windows machine, both in terms of compile time and in terms of run time environment? This came up while Laci implemented a gettimeofday()-like function that would work both on unix and on windows. He managed to get it compiled on windows and proudly (because I tested it on windows :-) committed the code only to get problem reports the next day... The reason: the fix involved including windows.h, which is only in the "Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows". The PSDK is free, but does not come together with VC++ Express. In general, it would be very nice if all our code could be compiled with VC++ Express (which is probably the compiler most people use on windows), but what should we assume? Should we expect the PSDK installed? This time I got around the problem by using _ftime instead of a higher resolution timer, but next time we might not be so lucky, we may have to use the WIN32 API to provide the same interface on unix and windows. Or should we switch to .NET, which is supported by VC++ Express without any additional download, but then the runtime .NET libs may not be on everyone's machine? In general, what should our policy, or rather, suggestion be to the project managers? The conclusion was that we should not assume much. In particular, the connected projects should not assume the PSDK has been installed. It is up to individual project managers of higher-level project what they want to assume. For instance, in the OS project, you need winsock.h for the socket layer code. The winsock.h comes with the full blown Visual Studio but not with the VC++ Express version. Hence to build OS, users also need to get "Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows."
2. It was discussed that the nightly build system is doing well. Kipp and JP asked that if anyone has use of or have access to a platform that is not linux, then perhaps using projects.coin-or.or/TestTools nightlyBuild will help keep things running and keep the code robust. Trac Pages are at https://projects.coin-or.org/TestTools. Platform status at https://projects.coin-or.org/TestTools/wiki/NightlyBuildInAction. It was briefly discussed what projects should be built and how to handle binary builds involving ThirdParty codes. At present, it seems fine to distribute codes built with ASL, Blas, Lapack, and Mumps. This allows the building of all projects in CoinAll. A script to make binary builds available is in place and will be activated once the next CoinAll release is produced. It was discussed that the current policy for contacting project managers when projects fail to build should be to do it unsolicited unless there are complaints.
3. The question of whether to host the Mittelman test set was thrown to the SLB.
4. BuildTools issues were tabled until the next meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Ted Ralphs, TLC Chair