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{\normalsize\bf MINUTES OF THE WORKING GROUP 2 MEETING OF CCP4}   \\
{\normalsize\bf HELD AT BIRKBECK COLLEGE ON JULY 1ST 1992}
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\begin{tabular}{ll}

\it{Present:}                   &                       \\
                                &                       \\
David Rice (Chairman)           & Sheffield University  \\
Don Akrigg &  Leeds University      \\
Peter Brick & Imperial College \\
Peter Daly & ESRF, Grenoble \\
Eleanor Dodson                  & York University       \\
Cameron Dunn                    & Bristol University    \\
Phil Evans                      & MRC, Cambridge        \\
Sheila Gover                    & Oxford University     \\
Paul Holden & Bristol University \\
Neil Isaacs                     & Glasgow University    \\
David Love  (Acting secretary)              & Daresbury Laboratory  \\
Sandra McLaughlin & EMBL, Hamburg \\
Jim Raferty                     & Manchester University \\
Gary Taylor & Bath University \\
Ian Tickle                      & Birkbeck College      \\

\end{tabular}

{\it Apologies\/}: Lindsay Sawyer and Wojciech Wolf

1. {\it Minutes of the previous meeting}

Minutes of the meeting held on the 6th of May 1992 were agreed with
some corrections.

2. {\it Study Weekend 1993\/}

Neil Isaacs presented a proposed timetable with speakers drawn up by
him and Lindsay Sawyer, and it was discussed.  Various suggestions
were made; primarily there was consensus that someone from Hamburg
should be invited.  Neil would follow up the suggestions and confirm
more speakers.

Following problems with speakers' overheads last time it was agreed
that Daresbury should organise sending sample overheads to speakers so
that they could ensure the clarity of their slides in the lecture
theatre.

A provisional costing provided by Wojciech Wolf was circulated
(attached).  David Rice raised several questions about this.  Costings
appeared to be missing to cover the normal free registration of 100 UK
students and to subsidise their accomodation.  He
enquired whether the subsidy to the meeting
could be raised and wished to look at the budget again at the
next WG2 meeting in the light of a review of the income from
commercial distributions.
\newpage
3. {\it CCP4 ports etc.\/}

Dave Love was asked to report on what he was working on.  Currently
this is mainly resolving problems with the portability of the suite
and providing a new configuration system designed to make correct
installation easier and to provide facilities for compilation and
development on several systems in parallel.  He had also done work to
place the sources under version control and planned to institute a
system of defined versions for releases rather than the current system
of distributing `live' sources.  Bugs discovered in the then-current
release which were considered serious would have patches made for them
against the released version; these should be available in the ftp
area and distributed via the `bulletin board', it was agreed.  A
changes summary should be posted to the bulletin board with the
announcement of a new release.  There was some confusion reported over
how to access the bulletin board and info-server.\footnote{To
subscribe to the bulletin board, send a message \mbox{\tt sub ccp4bb}
to the address {\tt list-server@daresbury.ac.uk} from abroad or to
{\tt list-server@uk.ac.daresbury} from within JANET\@.  The
info-server's address is {\tt info-server@daresbury.ac.uk} from abroad
and analogously from JANET\@.  Send a message {\tt help} to the
info-server for guidance; the CCP4 distribution is in the directory
{\tt /CCP/ccp4}.  (In the above addresses, {\tt dl} can be used as a
synonym for {\tt daresbury}.)}

Regarding portability: little had so far been done on the RS/6000 port
because of lack of access to a suitable machine.  This would be
arranged at York for initial work prior to a visit to Glasgow aimed at
sorting out the problems finally.  In answer to the question of
possible portability problems with up-coming 64-bit architectures like
the SGI Crimson, Phil Evans reported that Cambridge's Alliant is a
64-bit machine so there is presumably no problem.  Kim Henrick had
reported and solved problems with the {\tt plot84} library on the ESV
machine.  Peter Daly had supplied code for an HPUX port.

There were complaints about the difficulty of acquiring updates to the
sources from Daresbury.  The info-server is not convenient for large
files or many files and the ftp area\footnote{{\tt
anonymous@gserv1.dl.ac.uk:pub/ccp4}} contains only large `tar' files
of the major directories.  Dave Love was asked to provide access to
the CCP4 directory tree via anonymous ftp or by login to the Daresbury
Iris; he had not realised that developers had no access to the Iris.

Recent efforts to get the Daresbury sources in sync.\ with Cambridge
and York had been very time-consuming, although there was dissent that
it should not be so.  One of the problems is a lack of suitable data
sets for regression tests.  Peter Brick is to provide some suitable
small data sets for testing by developers and to go in the
distribution.  Dave Love is to circulate developers in particular with
instructions on how to record changes and distribute them to try to
alleviate problems incorporating them into the master copies at
Daresbury and make it clear what to count as serious bugs.  The
developers would take instructions from Daresbury on reasonable
procedures found necessary to harness best the good work done by
everyone.

There was a suggestion that there should be some sort of sub-set of
`essential' programs defined---about 150 are currently distributed.
It would help at Daresbury to get this number down and defining a set
of `essential' programs would be useful for directing maintenance
effort to where it is most needed.  Although doubt was expressed that
any agreement could be obtained on programs to declare obsolete or put
in a sub-set, Daresbury will investigate whether it can be.

4. {\it Use of ANSI C\/}

It was agreed there there was no point in using ANSI C-specific
features e.g., prototypes, in the C-coded parts of the library as this
will cause portability problems and not provide any advantages.
Advantage will, however, be taken of ANSI libraries where available.
Peter Daly had provided code for this which would be incorporated.

5. {\it Jan Zelinka's CCP4 graphical interface\/}

There were questions raised about running the useful {\tt xloggraph}
tool for graphing log file output under X-windows.  This amounts
mainly to needing to know the appropriate X-windows incantations.
[Dave Love will include some instructions in a future version of the
CCP4 installation instructions.]  It was suggested that that there
should be extra output in the log files analagous to the {\tt
xloggraph} ones, but for `notebook' entries.

6. {\it Any other business\/}

David Rice enquired about the status of Wojciech Wolf's {\it CCP4
Software Package\/} page for the general CCP4 literature.  He
suggested taking out the functional details and including the first
paragraph from the EC proposal.  Also regarding publicity, Dave Love
reported that the {\it Computational Chemistry Yellow Pages\/}
(apparently a commercial undertaking that will charge subscribers) had
solicited information and an entry for CCP4 had been submitted from
Daresbury.  There has so far been only one commercial enquiry about
the new release.

A request for items for the next newsletter would be going out soon.

The CCP4 developers e-mail list mooted around the last WG2 meeting has
been set up and now works, after an initial hiatus.  This is for
developers to announce work in progress, discuss implementation
problems and suggestions etc.  To subscribe (or unsubscribe), send a
message preferably to {\tt ccp4-dev-request@dl.ac.uk} (Internet
address format) or to {\tt d.love} at the same site.  To broadcast to
the list use address {\tt ccp4-dev@daresbury}.

There was some discussion (but no conclusion) about whether there
should be a policy of charging a media/handling fee for {\em all\/}
tapes made for non-SERC funded institutions, at least.  (At present
only some kinds of tape---the most expensive---are charged for, but
making tapes is very time-consuming for the Daresbury staff.)

There is a suggestion for a European-funded workshop to be held in
Paris on September 21 or 27 (1992).

7. {\it Venue and date of the next meeting}

The next meeting was set for Thursday October 8, at Birkbeck College,
\mbox{11--30 am}.

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\centerline{D. Love (Acting secretary)}                 
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