Programming

I am currently working on the distributed execution of flows as part of the Meandre infrastructure—as a part of the SEASR project. One of the pieces to explore is how to push data between machines. No, I am not going to talk about network protocols and the like here, but how you can pass the data around. If you have ever programmed MPI using C/C++ you remember the tedious efforts that requires passing complex data structures around between processes. Serialization is a way to take those complex structures into a form that can be easily stored/transmitted, and then retrieved/received and regenerate the original complex data structure. Some languages/platforms support this functionality (e.g. Java, Python), allowing to easily use the serialized representation for persistency or transmission purposes. ...

cForms is a WordPress plugin that allows you to quickly add forms on your site. The plugin will allow you to collect information from visitors easily. Besides mail notifications, it also provides database back-ended tracking. Pretty convenient if you have to boost the usefulness of your site. Two examples I have more or less been involved is the SEASR 2009 workshop registration form and the iFoundry application form. On both cases, cForms worked like a champ. ...

Today, Meandre 1.4.0 has been released. The final release includes the infrastructure, tools (Workbench, ZigZag, etc.), and a set of component and flow repositories. Also, 1.4.1 will be also released later today adding the latest feature updates and few bug fixes on the tools.

Today I just tagged the final release candidate RC6 for the Meandre Infrastructure. The list of improvement from the previous 1.3.2 release is long, but I just want to highlight a few of them. Standardization of web services and their response information. Also added new services to help manage users, repositories, and jobs. The infrastructure is now able to provide a single system image cluster of Meandre servers. It also provides a new light weight HTML interface for easy administration. Location addition has been speeded up minimizing the network usage. Component contexts are locally cached, drastically reducing the preparation time of a flow before executing. Also, all the reported bugs reported so far has been fixed. Hopefully, the release will be pushed out this coming week. Stay tuned :D. Also, a few documentation for developers interested in the infrastructure can be find on the development tools Confluence wiki. ...

Last monday I tagged on the development SVN the first release candidate for the 1.4 version of the Meandre infrastructure. The new 1.4 version brings a pile of bug fixes, improves web service mechanics, provides a new HTML lightweight interface to the infrastructure, and implements a first version of the coordination facility (Meandre Distributed eXchange) used to assemble configurable single-image Meandre clusters based on Meandre servers—just to list a few of the 1.4 goodies. So far there is no firm release date, but it will definitely be before the SEASR 2009 Workshop on January 15th, 2009. ...