[saga-rg] Short Strawman versions

[Craig Lee]

I'd like to second Thilo's comments.  I've often used the "six calls of 
MPI" analogy
for what SAGA should be defining for grid apps.  The current SAGA API doc, 
however,
really is a reference manual that defines the API in (mostly) complete 
(i.e., "gory") detail.
That said, what we need is a "SAGA for Beginners" document or "cookbook" that
has lots of example programs -- starting with very, very simple programs 
and progressing
to programs add more functionality.

--Craig


At 02:37 AM 8/4/2005, Thilo Kielmann wrote:
>My guess would be that the whole SAGA effort requires a careful
>balance between simplicity and usefulness.
>...
>
>Comparing to the MPI standard, I believe there are 2 lessons to be
>learned: (at least ;-)
>
>1. make the API modular (SAGA does that already)
>    Many people write (their first) MPI codes just with MPI_Init and
>    Finalize, and with MPI_Send and Receive. (and get only later to the
>    more flexible things that require further understanding.)
>
>    To this respect, the very essential subset of SAGA should be
>    identified and supported by implementations that "do the right
>    thing automagically" by having good default values (e.g. for security
>    contexts)
>
>2. there should be a "SAGA cookbook"
>    MPI failed on this respect and good books came out only late,
>    delaying the uptake of MPI significantly.
>
>    I would thus suggest that a SAGA cookbook gets written as soon as
>    possible, maybe as part of the Wiki?
>
>
>My 2 cents,
>
>
>Thilo
>
>On Thu, Aug 04, 2005 at 08:57:16AM +0200, Andre Merzky wrote:
> >
> > Well, the question is what do you want to do, really.  Just
> > submit a job, just copy a file, just replicate one, just
> > open a stream...  In itself the use cases are simple, if you
> > take them all together its getting a large API.
> >
> > Session handle and security are designed to have sensible
> > default values - so you don't need to touch them.  We should
> > make that very clear.  E.g., if there is a X509 proxy for
> > your user id lying around, the default session handle (which
> > you won't even see) should have a X509 context attached
> > automatically.
> >
> > Now, the qeustion really is: is it still too complex, or are
> > we cleverly hiding the simplicity? :-D
> >
> > I assume that I am somewhat blinkered due to my daily dose
> > of SAGA - I think its blindingly simple, and we just need
> > good examples (e.g. map API to our use cases) to make that
> > obvious.  I might be wrong though...?
> >
> > Andre.
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting [Steven Newhouse] (Aug 03 2005):
> > > Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 16:40:35 +0100
> > > From: Steven Newhouse <sjn5 at doc.ic.ac.uk>
> > > To: Andre Merzky <andre at merzky.net>
> > > CC: Simple API for Grid Applications WG <saga-rg at ggf.org>
> > > Subject: Re: [saga-rg] Short Strawman versions
> > >
> > > >Is it merily confusing (== not simple) because its so much,
> > >
> > > The basic entry point involves too many 'simple' interfaces. If I just
> > > want to submit a job, what do I want to deal with? The session (probably
> > > not) & security (probably yes) APIs?
> > >
> > > Steven
> > --
> > +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
> > | Andre Merzky                      | phon: +31 - 20 - 598 - 7759 |
> > | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) | fax : +31 - 20 - 598 - 7653 |
> > | Dept. of Computer Science         | mail: merzky at cs.vu.nl       |
> > | De Boelelaan 1083a                | www:  http://www.merzky.net |
> > | 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands    |                             |
> > +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>
>
>
>--
>Thilo Kielmann                                 http://www.cs.vu.nl/~kielmann/