[MODEST] MODEST frameworks

[Simon Portegies Zwart]

Dear Modest Astronomer,

This is an announcement to invite you to participate in a MODEST
project in interfacing various exiting codes.  We aim to write and
submit an article to New Astronomy within the coming month.  if you
are interested to contribute to this article, please send me an email.
I will then coordinate the various contributions.

To give you some background:
During the last MODEST meeting in Amsterdam (MODEST-6d/e) we have
decided to start writing a simple framework program for connecting
stellar evolution, hydrodynamics and stellar dynamics. In this
'toy'-code each of the three major ingredients will receive the same
status in the sense that they drive the event list for the underlying
physics.

The code will be language independent. A top layer, written in the
Python scripting language, will have the choreography and dictate the
other tree codes their responsibilities.  For each of the major
'pillars' we will design a unique and unambiguous interface to
guarantee that only minimal changes to existing codes are needed to
get a first working version of the entire framework.

In this way we can guarantee that the various major codes can be
written in any language, ADA, Basic, C, C++, Cobol or even Fortran.
The framework code, written in Python, will connect all the separate
ingredients. Further details will be provided to those who express
interest in the project.

Sincerely yours,
Simon