[gmx-developers] Hidden modules in gmx?

[David van der Spoel]

On 2013-09-22 22:30, Erik Lindahl wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sep 22, 2013, at 10:22 PM, David van der Spoel <spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> now that we're moving to including all programs in the gromacs binary wrapper program "gmx" I wonder whether we could implement "hidden" modules. The purpose would be to have stuff that is not useful for ordinary users out of sight (like we have with some options in parse_common_args). Of course it should be possible to make those options visible again with some flag.
>>
>> The advantage would be that all programs/modules can take advantage of all the new functionality in the wrapper.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>
> In principle I don't mind, but we should start using this to reduce the number of visible options significantly, rather than swelling the number of not-very-tested invisible options.
>
> As we've discussed at a couple of occasions, many of the analysis tools have way too many options that have only been tested in 1-2 special cases by the author, and when people test these on other systems it frequently breaks. I would like to revert back to a case where everything we present to users has been tested extensively, and in a huge number of combinations.  Any code that has only been tested in a special case does not belong in the public distribution, IMHO.
>
Fine, but I'm thinking of management tools, e.g. for generating force 
field files etc. It definitely has to be decided from case to case.

It might also be used to include contrib stuff at a lower level of 
support (i.e. it compiles but it is only shown if you ask for it). We 
could indeed degrade a number of analysis tools in this manner.


> Cheers,
>
> Erik--
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-- 
David van der Spoel, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Dept. of Cell & Molec. Biol., Uppsala University.
Box 596, 75124 Uppsala, Sweden. Phone:	+46184714205.
spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se    http://folding.bmc.uu.se