[kepler-dev] PtolemyII 5.0beta release

Matt Jones jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
Tue May 24 08:51:35 PDT 2005 

And a few comments of my own...

Bertram Ludaescher wrote:
> Thanks Dan for the detailed clarification!
> 
> Some comments below..
> 
> Bertram
> 
> Dan Higgins writes:
>  > Hi All,
>  > 
>  >     Actually, things are a little more complicated than just finding 
>  > workflows. Some Ptolemy actors are in the compiled Kepler jars but not 
>  > in the Kepler library. As pointed out by Christopher, the Python actor 
>  > is in this category because it greatly delayed the first time startup of 
>  > Kepler (because all actors in the library are loaded at startup).  
>  > Workflows using these actors should run in Kepler.  But some Ptolemy 
>  > actors are not included in the kepler.jar file, depending on how you 
>  > compile the Ptolemy source. If you use the 'ant ptolemy' command (in 
>  > Kepler), the ant build file 'build-ptolemy' is used and if you look at 
>  > its contents, it explicitly excludes certain Ptolemy source directories 
>  > where we had compilation problems. This includes the jai directory were 
>  > the Java Advanced Imaging source is included. You can look at the 
>  > exclusion list to see what actors have been skipped. In general, 
>  > anything that might cause problems for some users was removed (and not 
>  > everyone had the JAI support code (which is platform specific) 

So far our general strategy has been to exclude ptolemy code that
doesn't compile or has atypical dependencies unless there is a specific
need for that functionality in kepler.  Our plan had been to revisit the
build.xml file and add in tests for those dependencies and include the
code if the required software to meet the dependency was present, but
this has never happened.

Our current plans have changed and are more sophisticated.  We are
planning a Kepler archive format (.ksw file) that will allow us to
package up an actor, its MoML description, other metadata, and all other
code on which it depends (e.g., jar files, native code libraries).  SOme
of these will be included by reference (using LSIDs) rather than being
present in the KSW file itself.

The current work on the Kepler Object Manager will allow us to load one
of these archives at run-time.  This means that workflows that depend on
particular actors will no longer require that those actors be shipped
with the Kepler release.  Rather, the object manager will notice the
dependency and try to satisfy it by finding the archive in network data
stores by resolving the LSID pointers.  This will allow us to modify the
kepler distribution into a core distribution that contains just the most
fundamental actors, and other actors can be bundled into .ksw files that
may ship with kepler or be made available as optional downloads.  This
will decrease the size of the distribution significantly, allow for
functional clustering of related actors, and solve the problems with
loading required java dependencies and native code dependencies, and,
most importantly, add custom composite actors and workflows to be
published and shared among Kepler instances.

See http://kepler-project.org/Wiki.jsp?page=KeplerObjectManager and
http://kepler-project.org/Wiki.jsp?page=KSWEncapsulationSpecification
for a relatively up-to-date description of plans.
> 
> yikes.. what ever happened to the much advertised platform
> independence of Java ;-)
> 
>  > installed). So there are some Ptolemy workflows that will not run in the 
>  > alpha6 release of Kepler.
>  > 
>  >     Until now, (as far as I know) no Kepler user had asked for us to 
>  > include JAI in the Kepler distribution, That can change, but it does 
>  > cause installation difficulties.
> 
> I guess we just have the first Kepler user asking for it.. 
The JAI-dependent actors would be a great test of the KSW concept, one
where the required dependencies include jar and native code archives
that are not in our control but need to be tested.

Matt

> 
> BTW, why is the subject line "beta"? I guess it must be around the
> corner :-)
> 
> cheers
> 
> 
>  > 
>  > Dan
>  > 
>  > Shawn Bowers wrote:
>  > 
>  > >Carlos,
>  > >
>  > >We ultimately want to set up a uber-repository for all of the kepler and 
>  > >ptolemy actors and workflows ...
>  > >
>  > >But currently, we only include a subset of those by default in the 
>  > >"library".
>  > >
>  > >However, you can, just like in Ptolemy, open any moml file in kepler -- 
>  > >so if you know the path to those files in ptolemy, you can also open 
>  > >those in kepler.  In fact, you can also add them directly to the 
>  > >hierarchy as well (a little more work, but possible).
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >shawn
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >
>  > >Carlos A. Rueda wrote:
>  > >  
>  > >
>  > >>Hi Dan, cvs admin, and all,
>  > >>
>  > >>I would like to start using some Ptolemy actors that are based on
>  > >>the Java Advanced Imaging system (JAI), but they are not included
>  > >>in the released kepler 1.0.0alpha6. Perhaps the current CVS version
>  > >>of Kepler already includes them but I apologize I have forgotten my
>  > >>cvs password (username: rueda)
>  > >>
>  > >>So my questions are:
>  > >>
>  > >>1- Is the current CVS updated with the new actors in PtolemyII 5.0beta,
>  > >>    particularly those related with JAI?
>  > >>    If not, i) is there a time frame for that?, or ii) how can I instruct
>  > >>    kepler to load them?
>  > >>
>  > >>2- Would the cvs admin please contact me about my password?
>  > >>
>  > >>Thanks.
>  > >>
>  > >>carlos
>  > >>
>  > >>
>  > >>Dan Higgins wrote:
>  > >>
>  > >>    
>  > >>
>  > >>>Hi All,
>  > >>>
>  > >>>   The Ptolemy project has released version 5.0beta of PtolemyII at
>  > >>>
>  > >>>http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/ptolemyII/index.htm
>  > >>>
>  > >>>This link is to the source code version which can by used to build 
>  > >>>Kepler. You might want to use it instead of trying to get the CVS 
>  > >>>version of Ptolemy. It seems to work fine with the current Kepler CVS 
>  > >>>code; it won't reflect the latest changes in Ptolemy code but it is 
>  > >>>probably more stable and doesn't have a lot of experimental stuff that 
>  > >>>the Ptolemy CVS head does. You can also see the latest changes made in 
>  > >>>Ptolemy
>  > >>>
>  > >>>Dan
>  > >>>
>  > >>>      
>  > >>>
>  > >>_______________________________________________
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>  > >>Kepler-dev at ecoinformatics.org
>  > >>http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics/mailman/listinfo/kepler-dev
>  > >>    
>  > >>
>  > >
>  > >_______________________________________________
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>  > >http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics/mailman/listinfo/kepler-dev
>  > >  
>  > >
>  > 
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Matt Jones                                     jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439    Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
University of California Santa Barbara
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