Conference call notes 20150512 - easybuilders/easybuild GitHub Wiki

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Notes on the 29th EasyBuild conference call, Tuesday May 12th 2015 (3.00pm - 3.30pm CET)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (6):

  • Pablo Escobar (UniBas - SIB, Switzerland)
  • Petar Forai (IMP/IMBA, Austria)
  • Fotis Georgatos (freelancer)
  • Eric Gregory (JSC, Germany)
  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)
  • Alan O'Cais (JSC, Germany)

Agenda

  • an overview of the EasyBuild activities at the NeIC conference last week
  • an outlook to EasyBuild v2.1.1 (bugfix release which should go out soon, mostly related to --module-only)
  • a discussion on how to get more people involved in reviewing/testing pull requests and shorten the turnaround time for incoming contributions

Notes

EasyBuild activities @ Espoo (Finland) & NeIC conference
  • 2-day EasyBuild hackathon @ CSC.fi (see https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/9th-EasyBuild-hackathon)
    • 6-7 attendees, almost all CSC.fi employees (+ one visitor from uit.no on day 2)
    • good response, everyone got their hands dirty
    • most of the work was done on Taito (x86_64 Linux cluster, with Lmod & hierarchical modules)
    • not so much on their Cray system (Sisu)
    • nice result: 20-30% faster CP2K build compared to manual build by local application expert
  • invited talk on EasyBuild (and Lmod) at NeIC User Support Workshop
    • http://neic2015.nordforsk.org, https://www.nsc.liu.se/~torbenr/neic2015/
    • followed by a 2-3hr hands-on session
    • good response overall, some people were even amazed
    • contact made with new potential contributors, a couple of newcomers in EasyBuild IRC channel
    • uit.no is planning to push EasyBuild on a national level in Norway, other Nordic countries may follow their lead
EasyBuild 2.1.1
  • bugfix release, mostly focused on (serious) issues with --module-only
    • module load statements are missing in generated modules if --module-only is combined with --force (which it usually is)
    • a large portion of easyblocks were incompatible with --module-only (unset variables because of skipping of tests)
    • unit tests were enhanced to make sure easyblocks remain compatible with --module-only
  • release is imminent, just a couple of other minor things that will be included as well (e.g. support for installing GROMACS v5.x)
Lowering turnaround time for (easyconfigs) pull requests
  • over 300 open easyconfigs pull requests, lowering that turns out to be difficult due to limited amounts of time
  • more automation is required
    • automatic style review (first-pass)
    • better feedback by bot rather than just passing a link
    • automatic 'regtesting' of PR once unit tests and style review pass
    • human factor can't be ruled out entirely, but can be minimised significantly
  • Fotis: good exercise is to imagine what would be needed if number of pull requests multiply by factor of 10-100
  • more community involvement in reviewing/testing of PRs is required
  • can http://gerrithub.io help?
    • alternative interface to GitHub
    • allows voting of pull requests, requiring (multiple) sign-offs, etc.
  • merge sprint day with common contributors
    • block a couple of hours in your agenda to help out getting PRs merged in
    • Kenneth will send out a doodle to figure out a suitable date
Other topics

  • outreach

    • Mozilla Science Lab director seemed interested after mail to Software Carpentry 'discuss' mailing list
    • contact PRACE trainers (suggestion by Fotis, maybe via Alan?)
      • Alan is already kind of doing that
    • possible involvement in PRACE project via Andreas @ Cyprus Institute
      • follow-up of UEABS PRACE benchmark suite project?
      • Alan is also trying to get a (non-PRACE) project approved that involves EasyBuild for setting up training infrastructure
    • let EasyBuild be a supporting tool in a particular work package of a large PRACE project should be feasible
    • score a talk at HPC-SIG (UK consortium of HPC sites, http://hpc-sig.org/) via Fotis (who is freelancing in UK right now) or Ola (Univ. of Warwick)?

  • EasyBuild event @ JSC? (Alan)

    • end June/early July timeframe?
    • to kickstart use of EasyBuild on new JURECA systems
    • to motivate getting (customised) easyblocks/easyconfigs that now only exist 'in-house' @ JSC contributed back upstream
    • discuss interest in using EasyBuild on desktop systems as well
    • preliminary talk about how EasyBuild might work on BlueGene systems