This week in the DAB (update thread)

[ihrsetrdr]

There hadn't been any activity at all in the DAB on foldingforum since Dec 22nd, but this past week(while I lay at Death's Door with the FLU) there appears two recent threads.

rjbelans starts a thread in the DAB section that seeks to stimulate further discussion on the Folding pratices guidelines. No replies yet, perhaps discussion in the original thread was extensive enough.

Dr. Vijay Pande started a thread titled "v7 open beta release" which it seems is more about the proposed opening of the beta test section to the Public, than the actual v7 beta client itself.

We've been pounding on the v7 client and some new cores and related WS updates for the v7 open beta release. While we don't have to connect in other issues, such as changes to the beta team that we talked about, I think it may be a good idea to suggest all at once.

So, I think we've all had time to think about the proposed changes. I'm curious if there are any showstoppers to the beta plan we came up with, i.e. to start it closed, but open up individual threads as projects go past beta testing? We've discussed that we'll have to inform beta team members of the change ahead of time, i.e. before we start new project threads in the beta forum, and old threads (i.e. those started before the announcement) would remain closed.

I'm excited about the new functionality in the new cores and v7 and also the possibility of greatly extending the GPU and SMP parts of FAH, since v7+new SMP cores makes this a lot easier for newbies to run. I think this beta team change could help a lot too.

Replies follow, mostly by rjbelans, zodac and bruce.

 

[ChasR]

In my opinion it's a mistake. So many people use FF as their only source of information and help that are going to be drawn to beta testing, like flies to sh*t, not knowing what they're getting into or what they're doing, that you have to have a way to filter them out as is now the case. Without that filter, beta testing is going to be a massive help project instead of a beta test.

I'm much less excited than Dr. Pande about v7. Given a choice I'd run the v6.xx clients and I think most "pros" will come to the same conclusion. I might change my mind if I could monitor v7 with HFM.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

We'll likely never know exactly what bit Vijay, to make him concerned about transparency of the project; I'd find it hard to believe that mere user criticism alone was responsible.

My initial enthusiasm for jcoffland's v7 client has faded considerably; I'll continue using the traditional console...as long as it's available.

 

[ChasR]

Transparency is a very liberal idea. Academics are generally very liberal. It works poorly in many instances and this will be one of them.

 

[harlam357]

I might change my mind if I could monitor v7 with HFM.

I agree with Charles that the beta team should stay as is... I think it's already enough of a help project.

I ran v7 on a C2Q for a few days (after I finally got it setup right)... no thanks to anyone in the v7 beta forum. Pointed out the issue and no one seemed to listen. Anyway...

I was really stopping in to say that I've had contact with Vijay and Joe regarding the third-party API for v7. Joe says it's done but not documented... so I'm still stuck in the mud until they give me some docs. Even then, besides writing the network interface to the client, I'm going to have to change the way a single client is configured... since it can now contain multiple "slots". Plus, configuration will be a network (IP address) and not a file/folder path over some communication protocol.

My biggest concern is gaining access to the log file... if I can get the client to return it to me in full over the raw TCP/IP connection, then that would be excellent. I'd rather the user not have to configure and IP/machine address AND a folder share. Vijay says, "don't parse the log", and if I'm going to continue to show the log in HFM then I'm going to have to gain access to it and parse it to some degree.

I would have released v0.6.2.330 but Stanford just did their whole UNLISTED core thing due to the whole A3 to A5 switch and I want to fix it before releasing.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

I had to check, Vijay turned 40 not too long ago- it all makes perfect sense now.

Think Mid Life.

 

[dfonda]

I agree with Charles that the beta team should stay as is... I think it's already enough of a help project..............




I would have released v0.6.2.330 but Stanford just did their whole UNLISTED core thing due to the whole A3 to A5 switch and I want to fix it before releasing.

H,
This answers the PM I sent you in regards to 6.2.330, sorry I didn't check here first.
Thanks

 

[ihrsetrdr]

More on the transparency concept(Sat,Mar.12,2010):

How about this for now: we have been listening to the DAB's concerns about transparency and we have been debating the best way. We have in the past gotten pushback from beta testers that beta testing needs to be done in a closed fashion to get useful information (I believe Tobit feels this way for example) and I have sided with the beta testers since we need high quality beta testing and this is a tough job as it is.

However, I've never liked the idea of having some things that we can't talk about and it's clear that the extra burden of handing development PR ontop of doing the coding and the science isn't working. Hopefully by opening up the beta team and bug tracker, donors will see all the hard work that's going on.

 

[dfonda]

So Tim its basically a compromise? This seems reasonable to me...any downside to the 2nd paragraph?

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Well, I have just not spent enough time lately on foldingforum to get a sense for the whole range of discussion, but I think that Dr. Pande summed it up in the following post made in the Hidden Forum(beta, non-DAB):

I've been getting lots and lots of complaints about FAH that we are secretive and are hiding things all the time. For a long time, I've seen the need for closed beta testing as a necessary step (as we need to get really strong beta testing done to make improvements), but I'm starting to worry that it's now doing more PR damage than the good it does with closed testing (I think people all like testing of some sort -- it's the closed part that is the problem).

I think it's a good time to push hard to open everything up. I think it would go a long way to help donor morale in some camps. I know some of this will seem radical, but I think we need to push hard to avoid any situation where we need to police secrets, etc.

I think the plan above is a good first step, although I would personally prefer to open it up completely (put everything involved in beta testing in the open, including flags, psummary, etc). I think if we did this, then there would be no way for people to complain about secrecy and they'd see all the hard work that the donors, beta team, and PG do to make FAH better.

Complete thread: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=17878



I am personally starting to not care which way they go, really. I think that it will become a "Pandora's Box" situation, if the 'openness' strategy has undesirable results, and they try to go back to a closed beta enviornment.

 

[dfonda]

Yeah , I don't get the complaints. I always felt that being in the Beta meant more of a commitment then I was willing to commit to.

If any one complains about secrecy why not join the Beta Team? Then they get to see first hand what it's about.

 

[ChasR]

It's going to prove interesting. People are going to see more of the "warts". As in p2684, where it was noted in testing that it didn't produce anywhere close to the norm for -bigadv WUs on any hardware, but nothing got done about it. More why?s are going to be the result. I'm with Dave, if you want to know what's going on,join the team.

On the other hand, it feels good to be able to post about my experiences with v7 and not be breaking the rules. Folks wouldn't be nearly as excited about v7, if they read the beta forum on the matter.