[gmx-developers] Hidden modules in gmx?

[ms]

On 22/09/13 23:04, Erik Lindahl wrote:
> Hi Massimo,
>
> We haven't decided anything yet, but the ideal solution (again, IMHO)
> would be to have a contrib-module that could be downloaded or enabled
> at compile time, and then you would get a number of extensions that
> are less tested.

As a humble user, I agree wholeheartedly with this solution. :)

cheers,
M.

>
> The problem is that while some users realize they need to check their
> results carefully, other's won't, and then they sometimes end up
> giving Gromacs a bad reputation for being "buggy", just because they
> were able to use some esoteric  feature. I don't really have any
> strong preference how things are set apart, but it is important that
> we discriminate better between code that _has_ been extensively
> tested and some random contributed function that might - or might not
> - work.
>
> At the end of the day,"tested code" comes down to volunteers who are
> willing to check that it works!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Erik
>
>
> On Sep 22, 2013, at 10:59 PM, ms <devicerandom at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 22/09/13 22:30, Erik Lindahl wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I am a gmx user (joined this ML because I needed to patch gmx long
>> time ago for a project, still lurking), and please don't do that.
>> Warning extensively that it is beta/poorly tested code is
>> essential, sure. Removing it altogether is not so nice. It *might*
>> work anyway, and even if it doesn't, people may still be able to
>> patch it, by using it, noticing the break and remedy by themselves
>> - and bringing the patch to devs.
>>
>> Am I being naive?
>>
>> thanks, Massimo
>>
>>
>> -- Massimo Sandal, Ph.D. http://devicerandom.org -- gmx-developers
>> mailing list gmx-developers at gromacs.org
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>


-- 
Massimo Sandal, Ph.D.
http://devicerandom.org