Minutes of the offline meeting held on 15 December 1998

Present: P.Mato, M.Cattaneo, P.Maley, R.Forty, T.Ruf, D.Ferrero,
            J.Saborido, G.Gracia, J.Closier, M.Cattaneo, P.Bartalini,
            D.Liko, N.Neufeld, P.Gay, M.Alemi, F.Ranjard

Apologizes: J.Harvey, A.Tsaregorodtsev, R.van Eijk

Minutes : Florence Ranjard

1. status of things (F.Ranjard)

      1.1 R.Van Eijk will present the package he has written within the
          ROOT framework for the Outer Tracker Testbeam on 
                      Tuesday 12 January 1999.
          

      1.2 Some questions about the LHCb Web:
          ==> should be addressed to Eric van Herwijnen.

      1.3 Access rights to LHCb data files should be clarified.
          Who will be responsible after Andrei's departure.

      1.4 What have we learnt with the Architecture Review, and how
          a group of developpers can make sure that their own ideas
          fit in the Architecture currently designed:
          ==> Vast subject for the next software meeting 
                      Tuesday 5 January 1999.

      1.5 Several persons around the table have attended the OO analysis
          and design training session last week: first conclusions.
          ==> mixed feelings  
              * very interesting and well done (everybody).
              * describe an ideal way of doing things but very difficult to
                achieve because we are  not in an ideal world and we are 
                physicists and not engeneers.
              * we are physicists but we can learn new technics developped
                by engeneers.
              * in Barcelona we have been told that "re-use" was the key
                issue, last week we have been told that it is not obvious
                to get "re-use", it should not be a key issue.
              * we have learnt also how to NOT do things, what features
                to avoid.
                ===> Marco Cattaneo will try to list these recommendations.

   2. experience with Objectivity and LHC++ in test beam (M.Alemi)
 

      http://lhcb.cern.ch/computing/offline/postscript/lhcxx.ps
      Please look at it for more details.

      Mario has used tools provided by LHC++ to store the data on
      Objectivity, retreive them and analyse them with Iris Explorer:
 

      Hbook2objy package allows to store CWN Zebra-file to Objy,
      HepODBMS provides classes for filling the database,
      HepExplorerBrowser module of IrisExplorer is not as powerful 
      as ootoolmgr,
      HepLoop module creates a Prototype code and a Makefile which has
      to be complete by the user.

      Iris Explorer can generate C-code which can run in batch.

   3. Implementation of 'new' physics generator in SICB (P.Bartalini)

      http://lhcb.cern.ch/computing/offline/postscript/lhcbweek_dec98.ps
      Please look at it for more details.

      Paolo presents ideas, already presented in the physics meeting during 
      the LHCb week, to interface several physics generators to SICB.

      Paolo proposed to use a tool (StdHep) developped by L.Garren at FNAL 
      which interfaces any generator output common with /HEPEVT/ then provides
      the necessary routines to feed the GEANT3 structures from /HEPEVT/

      A part has already been developped by Andrei, but it is not yet released:
      - use the /HEPEVT/ common block to feed GEANT3 structures.
      - create a PGEN bank which has the same structure as /HEPEVT/to store
        the event generator output : this bank could replace the current 
        ntuple.
      - but there is not yet any link between the particles stored in PGEN
        and those stored after tracking in ATMC.