Hi everybody, I think debian-devel would be the much more appropriate list for this discussion. debian-testing is for
This list finds problems with the next Debian release. This includes: trying the installation, trying the upgrade, and testing individual packages. and thus totally inappropriate for this thread. Rainer. > Hi All, > > I feel I should comment on this, even though I'm not on > <[email protected]> or any of the other mailing list, > since I did once pack the CERNLIB software for Debian, though it was > entirely in binary form (I didn't bother to recompile), which I know > is wrong, but it didn't really matter, since it couldn't get into > public domain anyway, and I had no right to redistribute anyway. > > If anyone would like to pack CERNLIB for Debian, mail me, and I'll > send you what I have. > > However, I'd like to point out a few things concerning CERNLIB. Don't > get me wrong - it's a great (in both senses of the word) piece of > software, and has certainly withstand the toll of time. > > > I've been using it for > > about six or seven years, but it's much older than that. (But continuously > > updated, of course.) > > CERNLIB is no longer really updated. It's supported, but not > updated. Officially I believe that CERN is promoting LHC++ which is > based on commercial software. > > > CERNLIB is huge. If this gets packaged for Debian (and I would *love* to > > see someone package this) it's going to need to be broken into many > > subpackages. The subset of CERNLIB that I have installed (most devel > > libraries, header files, and binary executables. I don't have source > > or object files.) weighs in at about 100MB. > > When I originally packed it, I put it into 3 packages cernlib1, > cernlib1-dev, and cernlib1-bin in a total of 43 MB (only > binaries), and an installed size of (103088+31390+2731)KB = 134MB. > > > ... whatever you can even think of wanting to do with a histogram, > > nothing does this better than CERNLIB/PAW. > > Hmm. I'm afraid I dont agree (see more on ROOT below). > > > The biggest problem with the code is that it's very Fortrany. You can > > interface with C/C++, but the mindset that went into designing the APIs > > and user interface was definitely a Fortran one. If you like Fortran, > > though, you'll be at home with this code. > > I guess this is the real Ackillies heel of CERNLIB. In general, it > seems like the Physics community is moving away from Fortran (for > better or for worse) and toward C++ (for better or for worse). This > shift provides the scientific programmer with all the (fancy) features > of that a modern programming language like C++ provide > (Object-Orientedness, dynamical memory managment (who said ZEBRA), and > so on). > > Therefore, I feel I should promote another (and in my opion greater) > piece of software: ROOT (see http://root.cern.ch). > > Again, ROOT is a framework for data analysis, crunching, acquisition, > and so on - all the stuff CERNLIB can do (and in some cases more). It > is written in C++, and the user writes C++ - no more of that Fortran > stuff around (except for two utility programs to import CERNLIB > stuff), or strange command-line interfaces - even in an interactive > session, you write C++ (you only need to know one language!). ROOT > also have a very nice GUI framwork, as well as facilities for parallel > computing, remote file access, and so on. > > Various extension libraries have been contributed, among those, two > (AFAIK) neural net libraries, buisness management, and so on. Also, > ROOT is far smaller (in disk terms) then CERNLIB, only 45 MB including > sources (23 MB). > > ROOT is used by many modern day Physics experiments, where the data > flux reaches un-precedented hights: > > * NA49 at CERN http://na49info.cern.ch (original developers) > * ALICE at CERN http://alice.web.cern.ch/Alice > * BRAHMS at RHIC http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/brahms > * PHENIX at RHIC http://www.phenix.bnl.gov > * STAR at RHIC http://www.star.bnl.gov > * PHOBOS at RHIC http://www.phobos.bnl.gov > * BABAR at SLAC http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BFROOT/ > > and many others ... > > ROOT was originally developed at the NA49 collaboration at CERN, by > Rene Brun, Fons Rademarkers, and others. The former two where also > heavely involved in writting CERNLIB. Since then the ROOT team have > grown extensively, and many have one-time contributers. > > Having said all these wonderful things about ROOT, I should point out > some of it's weaknesses: > * ROOT doesn't (at present) have a detector simulation package. > * It's not GPL'ed (or Open Source) due to the following line in the > lisence: > > Additionally, the authors grant permission to modify this software > and its documentation for any purpose, provided that such > modifications are not distributed without the explicit consent of > the authors and that existing copyright notices are retained in all > copies. > * CERN does not officially support ROOT. > > All that said, I recommend ROOT over CERNLIB, anytime. > > > CERN decided to court the open source community by releasing it under a > > modified GPL, but I and others on the linux-hep mailing list successfully > > lobbied for a change to full GPL. > > Maybe <linux-hep> could lobby the ROOT team to do away with the above > mentined line, and have something GPL'ish!? > > Anyway, that's my 2 pennies worth. > > Cheers, > > Christian ----------------------------------------------------------- > Holm Christensen Phone: (+45) 35 35 96 91 > Sankt Hansgade 23, 1. th. Office: (+45) 353 25 305 > DK-2200 Copenhagen N Web: www.nbi.dk/~cholm > Denmark Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
