[Ifeffit] divorce and OSX

[Bruce Ravel]

Hi,

There are two more issues that I wanted to comment on, but my last
message was really long, so I am writing a new one.

1.  Matt suggested an amicable divorce as a way of trying to avoid
    many of the installation problems that we have been having
    recently.  I would suggest a separation rather than a divorce.
    Ifeffit and the apps might resolve their marital issues in the
    future and choose to get back together.  But for now, for the sake
    of the kids, I think a separation is a good idea.

    I freely confess that many of the installation problems are either
    due to programming mistakes I have made or due to inherent
    problems in how perl modules get built.  It seems imprudent that
    Matt and Ifeffit should suffer for those reasons.  And, as Matt
    pointed out, my codes are evolving and releasing faster than
    Ifeffit itself.  While it is certainly less convenient for the end
    user to have to install several packages than a single one, it is
    even less convenient if the whole kit 'n' kaboodle fails because
    of an error in a single app.  A separation is thus a very good
    idea.

    The separation works well for unix users, where it is a simple
    matter to grab, say, the athena source tarball and install it on
    top of a functional ifeffit.  It is a little less convenient for
    the windows users.  I suppose a solution is that *I* build a new
    windows installer package based off of Matt most recent ifeffit
    release when I release new source code tarball.  That's not a
    complete solution because Sam will certainly have a different
    release schedule than I will.  I vote that Matt, Sam, and I put
    off dealing with that until dealing is unavoidable.

2.  Could Paul, Francois, or Chuck summarize for us the status of
    ifeffit + X + perl + tk + my codes on OSX?  (Although I chuckled
    when I read it, I cannot bring myself to actually use the word
    Ravelware ;-) Specifically I am interested in a clear statement of
    how difficult it is to get my codes up an running on a virgin
    system and how much time it takes.  I am also interested in the
    prospects for providing a click-n-install package for OSX users.

    I just gave a poster at the NSLS users meeting on my software and
    showed one of Francois's pictures of Atoms running on OSX.  I
    presume that it will spark some interest.  Also, NRL's beamlines
    at NSLS are Mac shops (thanks to Johnny Kirkland, deacon of the
    church of the mac) and I'll want to be running the codes there.

Thanks,
B

-- 
 Bruce Ravel  ----------------------------------- ravel at phys.washington.edu
 U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Code 6134          phone: (1) 202 767 5947
 Washington DC 20375, USA                             fax: (1) 202 767 1697

 NRL Synchrotron Radiation Consortium (NRL-SRC)
 Beamlines X11a, X11b, X23b, X24c, U4b
 National Synchrotron Light Source
 Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973

 My homepage:    http://feff.phys.washington.edu/~ravel 
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