Tenth ctools coding sprint¶

The tenth ctools coding sprint was held online in the week of February 1-5 2021.

Rationale¶

We anticipate the release of GammaLib and ctools 2.0 in spring 2021. They will feature major upgrades in the response calculation with the aim of speeding-up the computations (e.g., #3328), but this is also an opportunity to add more features and upgrades to the toolkit and to improve the documentation and tutorials. We will gather for a full week in order to work together with developers and users to make this happen. We will have daily meetings every morning at 2PM CET, and for the rest of the time split into groups and work on a number of issues and projects.

Audience and Participants¶

Everyone is welcome; if you have used ctools for CTA science simulations or IACT data analysis, if you are interested in contributing to the ctools and GammaLib software code development, documentation, and tutorials, or if you are already an experienced developer, you can contribute. You will need some programming skills in Python and/or C++. If possible, install both the ctools and GammaLib packages before the beginning of the sprint (installation instructions are available here). For new folks: you can get a head start also by making an account on Redmine and taking a look at the code documentation (http://cta.irap.omp.eu/ctools/ and http://cta.irap.omp.eu/gammalib/).

• Luigi Tibaldo
• Jürgen Knödlseder
• Atreya Acharyya
• Sergio Hernández Cadena
• Veronika Vodeb
• Eirik Hatlen
• Olga Sergijenko
• Leonardo Di Venere
• Judit Pérez-Romero

To stay in touch it’s also recommended that you joint the ctools mailing list (send an e-mail to ctools-subscribe@irap.omp.eu) and join the ctools Slack workspace and its #coding-sprint channel (ask via the mailing list).

Prerequisites for the sprint¶

• Install Git on the computer you plan to use for the sprint and familiarize yourself with it’s use (see https://git-scm.com). You may use a GUI front end for Git such as SmartGit which is extremely convenient to forget about the detailed syntax of Git commands (see http://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/)
• Learn about the ctools & GammaLib Git workflow and learn how to use GitLab (see http://cta.irap.omp.eu/ctools/develop/git/index.html for instructions on how to setup an account)
• If you have never done a commit, try to create a fake commit in your GitLab user space as follows
  • create forks of the ctools and GammaLib projects in your GitLab user space
  • create a feature branch in the fork (either in ctools or GammaLib)
  • clone the fork to your machine
  • edit the code
  • compile the code
  • commit the code
• Install the Zoom client on your computer to join the calls (https://zoom.us/download#client_4meeting)

Connection details¶

For daily and impromptu calls we will use Zoom. The information to connect has been sent via email and is available on Slack in the #coding-sprint channel.

Agenda¶

All times are CET

• 2PM-3:30PM: Start of coding sprint
  • Welcome & Introduction 10th-coding-sprint.pdf (Jürgen)
  • Discussion on projects and signup
• 3:30PM-6PM: Project implementation

• 9AM-12:30PM: Project implementation
• 2PM: Daily meeting, followed by project implementation

• 9AM-12:30PM: Project implementation
• 2PM: Daily meeting, followed by project implementation

• 9AM-12:30PM: Project implementation
• 2PM: Daily meeting, followed by project implementation

• 9AM-12:30PM: Project implementation
• 2PM-4PM: Assessment of project status and outlook

Collection of issues and projects to work on during the sprint¶

• Classical analysis with Off runs #3436 #3527 → Marianne, Gonzalo, Luigi, Jürgen
• Source localization and extension fitting #3433 → Leonardo
• Simulate realistic pointing strategies #3070 → Veronika
• Incorporate minimum number of counts in sensitivity calculation #2130
• Implement GModelSpectral for spectral lines #3386 → Eirik
• Fix script show_onoff_spectrum.py #3510 → Jürgen (extend to general testing of documentation)
• Support generic background model in ctfindvar #2769 → Olga
• Select models for a binned/stacked analysis in csmodelselect #3523
• Create pdf version of the documentation #2854
• DM tools #3533 (including #3535) → Sergio, Judit
• ...