[Gb-ccb] suggested changes to ccb library

[Brian Mason]

All- we've had a fair bit of discussion re: the ccb server
library. Let me see if I can venture a summary of Melinda & my
thoughts on the situation.  What we would like is:

 a) reordered error messages: not a *requirement*, just something
 that would be really nice. This will help us "throw out" (actually,
 send to a log file, rather than our message system) messages of the
 sort that we don't normally have in the message system.

 b) a simulation mode of the actual ccb server; the goal here is
 to have as much of the code as reasonably feasible be identical 
 between the simulation and the real thing. Again not an absolute
 requirement, but something which we believe will pay off.

 c) possibly, we would like to use the "scan control bit" which is
 in the device interface, to control scans. We currently have
 proposed a somewhat awkward mechanism in which the manager secretly
 starts a scan just before a real scan (outlined in draft form in
 the use cases Melinda and I wrote some time ago). Currently i believe this
 bit is not accessible via the server, ie, the server interface hides
 this bit and manipulates it itself (possibly for very good reasons:
 we don't know, and would like to discuss it). Don't go off and think
 about this for hours, as Melinda and I still need to look into this
 some more with the documents you've provided to see if we think we
 are on to anything here.

 Probably won't be a requirement, but could be helpful.

As background to the above: as a conscious choice, we never did
present you guys with a clearly defined software interface. The plan
was for you guys to define it, with some rough guidance as to how our
system "thinks" about scans etc, and us to offer some hopefully
minimal and not-too-hard to implement feedback. I think we are now in
that situation.  At the present, as regards the software, it will be
most useful to focus on assessing how difficult the changes are,
allowing that we have clearly communicated them.  That may not yet be
the case especially as regards item (c). On that point we'll get back
to you.

 Brian


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Brian Mason                           | office: +1(304)456-2338
Assistant Scientist                   | fax:    +1(304)456-2229
National Radio Astronomy Observatory  | mail:   PO Box 2
bmason at gb.nrao.edu                    |         Green Bank, WV 24944
http://www.gb.nrao.edu/~bmason/       |
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