I must second the "not very unique" notion since the feature has been available in the mac browser OmniWeb for quite sometime (as a sidebar). This same browser also allows you to store unlimited sets of open tabs for future use. Then again they want you to pay for the browser...
I am aware that I'm working with the offline software, it doesn't really change my opinion of the shortcomings of the framework... the learning curve for developing under athena is steep enough to ward me off and have me develope an independent program -- I believe this is a huge problem for those newer to the field such as myself.
I was handed some very Fortran-esque C code (run in several steps) and have been converting that into C++. There is an official framework called Athena, which is written in C++ as well... when I spoke about the drawbacks of the software I was speaking about just that. I have been developing outside of the framework because my work is more geared towards calibration and alignment, and I do not need to take advantage of some of the more finicky functionality supplied by the framework. For those interested... all the muon spectrometer data gets spit out as 32 bit words with various headers. There is lots of interesting computing to be done, since every track fit I am currently doing is "blind" and results in 2^6 * (a few hundred) regressions to find the best candidate (and then 10 billion tracks in a file). Of more interest is the network backbone extending from CERN (tier 0) to Brookhaven Labs (Tier 1) to a few Tier 2 facilities such as BU (where I am.) The sheer volume of data spit out of these detectors requires some very interesting techniques. Sorry that was rambling...
As an undergrad writing software to help align the muon spectrometer, I have been surprised to learn how behind the software is with the hardware. After attending a workshop at Harvard I was informed that segfaulting is normal behavior at the end of a reconstruction run? I will be surprised if everything is working as grandly as this video's creators would have us believe. Also take note that I am an undergrad writing software to align the muon spectrometer, they must be behind...
Slashdot Mirror
I must second the "not very unique" notion since the feature has been available in the mac browser OmniWeb for quite sometime (as a sidebar). This same browser also allows you to store unlimited sets of open tabs for future use. Then again they want you to pay for the browser...
I am aware that I'm working with the offline software, it doesn't really change my opinion of the shortcomings of the framework... the learning curve for developing under athena is steep enough to ward me off and have me develope an independent program -- I believe this is a huge problem for those newer to the field such as myself.
ATLAS indeed
I was handed some very Fortran-esque C code (run in several steps) and have been converting that into C++. There is an official framework called Athena, which is written in C++ as well... when I spoke about the drawbacks of the software I was speaking about just that. I have been developing outside of the framework because my work is more geared towards calibration and alignment, and I do not need to take advantage of some of the more finicky functionality supplied by the framework. For those interested... all the muon spectrometer data gets spit out as 32 bit words with various headers. There is lots of interesting computing to be done, since every track fit I am currently doing is "blind" and results in 2^6 * (a few hundred) regressions to find the best candidate (and then 10 billion tracks in a file). Of more interest is the network backbone extending from CERN (tier 0) to Brookhaven Labs (Tier 1) to a few Tier 2 facilities such as BU (where I am.) The sheer volume of data spit out of these detectors requires some very interesting techniques. Sorry that was rambling...
As an undergrad writing software to help align the muon spectrometer, I have been surprised to learn how behind the software is with the hardware. After attending a workshop at Harvard I was informed that segfaulting is normal behavior at the end of a reconstruction run? I will be surprised if everything is working as grandly as this video's creators would have us believe. Also take note that I am an undergrad writing software to align the muon spectrometer, they must be behind...