[ET Trac] #2577: CactusTutorial.ipynb contains code only suitable or tutorial server

[Roland Haas]

#2577: CactusTutorial.ipynb contains code only suitable or tutorial server

 Reporter: Roland Haas
   Status: new
Milestone: 
  Version: development version
     Type: bug
 Priority: major
Component: EinsteinToolkit Virtual Machine

Comment (by Roland Haas):

Long post below, sorry.

I understand the difficulty it creates to try and have the same file present instructions for different environments. This, unfortunately, has always been tricky. ON the other hand, maintaining two different versions, is I suspect not going to be doable \(based on what happened in the past\).  
The issue with maintaining two almost identical sets of instructions is personpower \(e.g., this is why the wiki-based tutorial at [https://docs.einsteintoolkit.org/et-docs/Tutorial\_for\_New\_Users](https://docs.einsteintoolkit.org/et-docs/Tutorial_for_New_Users) is no longer maintained\) needed to keep them in sync. At least with one notebook, there is only one file to keep up to date. Exporting to HTML is not the tricky bit I suspect, to me the trickiest parts were always getting things to work in the notebook and when copying an pasting commands to a terminal window.

Having a mechanical \(no human intervention\) way to export a read-only, laptop suitable version from the notebook would be very nice. I just do not see how to easily do it.

The “no human intervention” is very important. So far, each time we had a process requiring human action there has always been the need to double check \(so at least review\) results. Case in point tends to be our release announcements. Eg the current one on hyperspace \(this is just the last time I noticed things, not to single out this particular instance, I can also point to instances where the typo etc is mine\) [https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2021/12/09/new-einstein-toolkit-release-johnson/](https://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2021/12/09/new-einstein-toolkit-release-johnson/) reads:

> The highlights of this release include:  
> \* The inclusion of a new code in the Toolkit release, Kuibit  
> \* The inclusion of a new code in the Toolkit release, RePrimAn

that is “RePrimAnd” is missing a “d”. This “d” is present in the template source file present at: [https://www.einsteintoolkit.org/about/releases/ET\_2021\_11\_announcement.md](https://www.einsteintoolkit.org/about/releases/ET_2021_11_announcement.md) but was removed when editing the file for length to include it in the hyperspace mailing.

Ideally all things that are tutorial server specific should be in the cell labelled “Notebook setup” and everything else should be written in such as way as to work on:

* the tutorial server
* the server used for ET new user tutorials at workshops
* in a docker container on people’s laptops
* on people’s laptops using jupyter-notebook
* as a read-only document from which one can copy and paste commands into a terminal

The latter is somewhat important \(for me at least\), since real world use of the ET is not \(yet\) via Jupyter notebooks but via the command line. 

When we asked how people use the tutorial there were a couple of groups that ask new students to run the tutorial notebook instruction on their laptop / clusters to get started with the ET \(eg this is how we obtained the quick-running TOV parfile\). In that sense our tutorial is more than just a tutorial that lets new users try things out without having to install anything but also a “getting started” document for new ET users in ET using groups.

Before deciding on spending time changing the target audience of the notebook it may be good to survey the user community again to see how people use the notebook and if  their are any issues with it that prevents them from using it more often. Looking back at the mailing list archive, the last such survey may have been as early as 2015: [http://lists.einsteintoolkit.org/pipermail/users/2015-April/004070.html](http://lists.einsteintoolkit.org/pipermail/users/2015-April/004070.html) so getting an update would be good.

‌

--
Ticket URL: https://bitbucket.org/einsteintoolkit/tickets/issues/2577/cactustutorialipynb-contains-code-only
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.einsteintoolkit.org/pipermail/trac/attachments/20220120/55504f40/attachment.html