[lsst-dm-stack-users] Winter 2014 LSST Stack Release

[Mario Juric]

All,
	Delayed by some last-minute excitement w. the new clang on OS X
Mavericks, and lots of help and feedback from Lynne, Simon, and Michael
Wood-Vasey, I'm happy to declare on behalf of the whole LSST DM Team
(aka. "those who did all the hard work"!) that the Winter2014 version of
the LSST software stack has been released.

To install, run:

	curl -O http://sw.lsstcorp.org/eupspkg/newinstall.sh
	bash newinstall.sh

These instructions should now work on all supported platforms. We're
initially releasing the source only, with binaries to follow at a later
date.

This release does not have many new algorithmic features or changes
compared to the Summer 2013 version. Most of the effort in this cycle
was directed towards improving the robustness of the code, improving
usability, and generally preparing our processes and the code base for
the start of LSST construction. Going forward, these changes will let us
have a considerably more nimble release schedule, with the ability to
produce, test, and release point releases and bugfixes as frequently as
necessary.

As an example of one of those changes, the LSST stack documentation has
been moved to Confluence:

	https://confluence.lsstcorp.org/x/IoNI

(still in draft form, but will get better over the next few days to weeks).

Here is a brief (and very much inexhaustive) list of "release highlights":

  * We've stopped building our own python interpreter. We now use
    a user-supplied Python 2.7, numpy, and matplotlib. This makes it
    possible to mix LSST modules with other modules you use in your
    everyday work. For those who don't already have a suitable build of
    Python, the installer offers to download and install the Anaconda
    Python Distribution. We recommend Anaconda as the standard way
    to run LSST code.

  * New packaging and distribution system. The new packaging and
    distribution system makes the build directions identical on all
    platforms we target (RHEL 6, OS X 10.8 and 10.9). The EUPS user
    interface has also been enhanced.

  * Refactored camera geometry abstraction modules. CameraGeom classs
    have been fully refactored based on past few years of experience.
    Currently, only obs_lsstSim and obs_sdss have been ported to the
    new framework; obs_decam, obs_cfht, and obs_subaru will follow in
    the next few weeks. REFRAIN FROM UPGRADING IF YOUR WORK CRITICALLY
    DEPENDS ON MODULES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN PORTED YET.

  * Experimental release of the new measurement framework. The
    measurement framework has been redesigned to support multifit-like
    measurement algorithms. This release is marked experimental, as
    not all features of the old framework have been ported to the new
    one. We plan to publish a point release in the near future as the
    feature set of the new framework becomes more complete.

  * Numerous bug fixes.

Accepting the risk of making inaccurate forward-looking statements,
here's what we're thinking about for the next release:

  * A major "documentation sprint" -- a period of time devoted to
    extensively documenting the high-level design and APIs of stack.
  * Continuation of paying down the technical debt accumulated in D&D
    and preparation of the code-base for construction (for new people
    coming on board).
  * New measurement framework with Multifit will be enabled
  * A data challenge to demonstrate Multifit.
  * Experimental prototype release of qserv, the LSST distributed
    database
  * More LSST software deliverable through the same EUPS mechanism

(all of these are subject to change as we get into designing & planning).


-- 
Mario Juric,
Data Mgmt. Project Scientist, Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
Web : http://research.majuric.org     Phone : +1 617 744 9003