Dear Doug and Blast folks,
Unfortunately I have to disagree with you on both points.
Standardization would be nice, and it certainly makes sense to have all
the Bates machines standardized. However, the software will HAVE to run
on more than one configuration. (Some of us need later version of Red
Hat than 7.0, and perhaps a later version than 2.25 in ROOT for other
projects.)
1) If we write proper software it will work on more than one platform,
with different version of compilers. All we need to do is avoid "broken"
versions. It is known that the standard RedHat7.0 C compiler is broken,
so it needs to be patched (see Red Hat). Also, we can standardize on "a
root version after 2.25/01", or even "after 3.00" if specific features
(say STL) are required for the code.
2) For operating systems I would suggest to keep up with the RedHat
releases if you are not behind a decent firewall. If you don't, you are
very vulnerable to breakins. Besides, users frequently request later
versions because of new features.
All that said, I do think that we need be sensitive to version issues.
This means writing properly portable code and making sure that we avoid
installations that are broken. We also should put the requirements for
the installation on the web pages.
Cheers,
Maurik
On Thu, 2001-09-27 at 18:45, Douglas Hasell wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In response to the flury of messages recently perhaps we should consider
> standardizing the installations of software versions, including operating
> systems, compilers, make files, libraries, etc. on all machines used by
> BLAST. Furthermore, I suggest that the versions be not the very latest but
> a stable set everyone can use and this should be done both at Bates, on
> campus, and at the other universities.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Douglas
>
> 26-415 M.I.T. tel: +1 617 258 7199
> 77 Massachusetts Avenue fax: +1 617 258 5440
> Cambridge, MA 02139, USA E-mail: hasell@mit.edu
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