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| DrHanser 2002-11-10 10:41:00 | I poked around a bit but I could not find any information on when the project will end. Is there a specific goal in mind that is achievable and has a concrete end (like RC5?) -- The mark of an educated man is one who knows a lot about something, and a little about everything. |
| Stephen Brooks 2002-11-10 15:04:49 | Right now I think our current work has got very near to the optimal design. I'll run this phase for a bit longer to test the new stuff that's appeared in v4.22 and then move onto v5 which will be optimising a different design. Timescale depends on when I program the new version basically. So right now if you're concerned with maximising your pure scientific output, you could move some machines across to another project until v5 and keep one ticking over on this. However the other stuff that's going on right now (infrastructure changes, soon testing of v4.22 with the optimisation-scripting-support) is also important from an 'e-science' point of view. Our distributed-servers idea is fairly unique and potentially very stable if we get enough of them. The "scripting support" I mentioned has to do with the input-format of the design data in v4.22 and above: it actually includes a C/JavaScript-like interpreter so that I will be able to input new test-ranges or designs into the system simply by adding a new text file (that the client will download), and the scripting can provide some of the logic of how the different designs will be built from the genome parameters. This means more flexible and faster science output, as I will be able to start and stop optimisations in the Muon1 system a bit like tasks on multitasking PC, although with a ~1 day lag for all users to download the new design and at least 7 days for the optimisation to take effect. This is still faster than having to deploy a new version every time, which takes months. "As every 11-year-old kid knows, if you concentrate enough Van-der-Graff generators and expensive special effects in one place, you create a spiral space-time whirly thing, AND an interesting plotline" |
