After some time of apparent silence from our side we would like to update you a little bit on the activities in the HSF during this period.
We have many efforts going on in parallel. Not quite at the speed we were hoping for when we started, but nevertheless there is tangible progress. In the next few newsletters we would like to update you on the following topics:
Today’s newsletter will be dedicated to the new HEP S&C Knowledge Base. Both the knowledge base and the website have been overhauled in recent months. The knowledge base, formerly integrated into the HSF website, is now a more flexible and scalable standalone implementation. The website has been simplified accordingly and implemented in a cleaner and more maintainable way using GitHub Pages.
The High Energy Physics (HEP) Software & Computing Knowledge Base (KB) at http://hepsoftware.org is a collection point for HEP related software projects and information on HEP software and computing. You can use it to look for existing software, to make your own project known to the community, and to inform the community what software you and your experiment use.
To take a concrete example, let’s have a look at the information stored for the ROOT http://hepsoftware.org/e/root package. It contains a short description of the project, pointers to support lists, repository, and other sources of information. In addition it links to the various users of ROOT within the knowledge base. All information, most of you probably know. However, finding that out for less well known packages is much harder. The KB provides a central collection point for such information. It also provides a way to describe relationships like who uses what.
In addition to software projects, the KB contains information about summer schools, various events or resources related to HEP software and computing or organizations. Of course the HSF http://hepsoftware.org/e/hsf. is represented there as well.
Please feel encouraged to extend, or update the information presented in the knowledge base. Its usefulness depends on developing rich informative content. Instead of requiring user registration, you can re-use your account of either GitHub, Google, Dropbox, Amazon, or Facebook. One click of confirmation and you can immediately start adding new information.
Editing itself works via clicking on the pen icon, typing your text in Markdown, and hitting the green save button in the header. A more detailed introduction into all the editing capabilities is given here http://hepsoftware.org/e/hepsoftwareorg.
Feedback is encouraged! Send it to hepsoftware@gmail.com or to the author, Torre Wenaus wenaus@gmail.com.