[Users] Meeting Minutes

[Bruno Coutinho Mundim]

On 02/05/2014 09:30 PM, Erik Schnetter wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2014, at 5:06 , Ian Hinder <ian.hinder at aei.mpg.de> wrote:
>
>> On 5 Feb 2014, at 06:22, Erik Schnetter <schnetter at cct.lsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> On Feb 4, 2014, at 23:31 , Frank Loeffler <knarf at cct.lsu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 10:39:23PM -0500, Erik Schnetter wrote:
>>>>> I have implemented option 4, since it is the only one that works with our current infrastructure (Cactus and GetComponents).
>>>>
>>>> This now included Boost, a thorn with a source size alone of half a
>>>> Gigabyte. I don't think this was really intended, at least not at this
>>>> point where the complete source is still included in the thorn.
>>>
>>> I added download lines for all thorns mentioned in our thorn list.
>>>
>>> The compressed source code itself has only about 70 MByte. The remainder is git repository "overhead", i.e. previous Boost versions. Maybe cleaning the git repository would help?
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> As far as I remember, Boost is not part of the ET, as it hasn't yet been agreed that it should be added, or in what form (maybe I missed it?).  There is a ticket about this, but no conclusion about whether the vote happened or not (https://trac.einsteintoolkit.org/ticket/1410).  The minutes of the 8th August meeting do not mention it.  I think the discussion started briefly at the end of a later telecon but there was not enough time, and it hasn't been brought up again.  Specifically, I think the major objection to Boost is its size, which can be ameliorated by changing the way the repository is structured, or the way that external thorns work (e.g. downloading the library tarball when needed, rather than on checkout).  The toolkit is only supposed to contain components which have been agreed on.  Since Boost is not yet (as far as I know) part of the toolkit, I don't think it should be downloaded with the toolkit by default.  It should be commented out in the thornlist, so that use
rs can add it back in if they want, until we agree on whether it should be included, and in what form.
>
> I have copied the Boost thorn into an svn repository, which is significantly smaller. Should we keep this in the ET thorn list, remove it, download it by default...?
>
> -erik
>

Hi,

have you looked into the possibility of using git-annex
for large binary files? It is a tool that acts on top
of a git repository and it commits only symbolic links
to the data you choose into the git repository. A checkout
then would be quick and you could choose to bring in
from a central repository only the data you want
if or when you need it. Please take a look into the
following link for more info:

https://git-annex.branchable.com/

specially the walk through link:

https://git-annex.branchable.com/walkthrough/

It may be helpful when dealing with external libraries
tar balls.

Cheers,
Bruno.