[Q-e-developers] [Pw_forum] IMPORTANT: QE Open Invitation to Contribute

[Filippo Spiga]

Dear Stefano,

as you an many others already know, I am involved in the GPU porting of QE, together with Ivan Girotto (ICTP) and hopefully two new people based in US. The QE-GPU code is on QE-FORGE ( http://qe-forge.org/gf/project/q-e-gpu/ ) and it is still a work in progress (if you want to contribute, drop me an email!). It works as a plugin for QE so basically it is (almost) aligned with the current official release and/or the current SVN version. We have a stable release, aligned with QE 5.0.1 but I am working now on new features on new packages. I am also broadly involved in other stuff around the main distribution.

I catch the opportunity to spend few words about the versioning system. I do like the GIT philosophy, the fact that it is light and distributed and fast. But I also believe that it is a pain. I tried it. GIT is not the solution, GIT is a tool like SVN or CVS. Actually we can efficiently use SVN by simply follow a basic rule: work on an update local copy. I do not understand why people do not do "svn update" every time they start to coding. I do that. All the time. We have to say honestly that merging two versions of the code that are temporally distant is a pain whatever versioning tool is used. So before start any discussion about change what we have (a change is not the solution) is much better to work to change our habits and always have in mind that we are not alone but there is a wide community that makes new developments and changes on the code every day. That's my opinion as computer scientist who works with non-computer scientists (and lot of them are much much more capable than me).

Cheers,
Filippo

On Oct 2, 2012, at 8:43 AM, Stefano de Gironcoli <degironc at sissa.it> wrote:

> =========================================
> 
> - OPEN INVITATION TO CONTRIBUTE -
> 
> TO: All users and developers who would like to share their independent
> local developments of tools and features written for Quantum ESPRESSO
> package with the community. 
> =========================================
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> Quantum ESPRESSO (QE) is a very successful initiative thanks to the effort
> and contribution of you, as developers and users, which we gratefully
> acknowledge.  Our community and software, in the spirit of open source,
> has grown outside the borders of its initial creation.  
> We are excited by the news of several independent developments, analysis
> tools and new features that have been developed in excellent research
> groups scattered around the globe.
> 
> However, we have come to realize that some of these developments,
> although they would be of great value to the community, have not found
> their way into the current distribution of QE package, and therefore do
> not get their deserved visibility and recognition.
> 
> One reason for this may be the legitimate interest of a group to keep
> these developments private. We believe, however, that a more common
> reason is that these features have been implemented, often with some
> significant effort, in an outdated QE version: porting them to the
> current version would require a considerable effort. This, however,
> forces the potentially contributing group to use an outdated QE version,
> thus preventing them from benefiting from new features and bug fixes.
> We believe this is a problem that needs to be addressed.
> 
> Of course, there is no easy solution but we would like to start exploring
> some possible options.  As a first practical action, we would like
> to compile an inventory of independent developments, in the form of
> features/analysis tools/developments, implemented in some version of QE,
> that would be happily shared if the "porting issue" could be solved.
> 
> The main purpose of this message is therefore to invite all potentially
> interested contributors to send a statement of their possible contribution
> to the address q-e-developers at qe-forge.org.
> 
> Everybody willing to be involved (or to be kept updated) in this process
> is welcome to subscribe to the q-e-developers mailing list
> (http://www.qe-forge.org/mailman/listinfo/q-e-developers, see also
> CONTACTS section of www.quantum-espresso.org).
> 
>    Best regards,
> 
>    Stefano de Gironcoli, Paolo Giannozzi, Layla MartinSamos, Emine Kucukbenli, Stefano Baroni
> _______________________________________________
> Pw_forum mailing list
> Pw_forum at pwscf.org
> http://pwscf.org/mailman/listinfo/pw_forum

--
Mr. Filippo SPIGA, M.Sc., Ph.D. Candidate 
CADMOS - Chair of Numerical Algorithms and HPC (ANCHP)
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
http://anchp.epfl.ch ~ http://filippospiga.me ~ skype: filippo.spiga

«Nobody will drive us out of Cantor's paradise.» ~ David Hilbert

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