Re: meeting in July / ca interface specification

[Doug Murray <drm@slac.stanford.edu>]

Yes Matthias, I agree that high-level application developers should be 
included in our discussion at some point.  I've started speaking with 
Greg White here at SLAC, as well as some other accelerator physicists 
with varying degrees of EPICS familiarity.

I'm very interested in the V4 API, and will certainly be spending more 
time on it before the July meeting.   I've got ideas on what the API 
should include (perhaps too many!), but without a lot of V3 programming 
experience myself, I might be spending more time on gathering ideas from 
folks that *do* have experience.

However, I would like to get something written down and communicated in 
our group before talking with accelerator physicists and other app 
developers.  Backwards as it seems, in my experience of asking the API 
users what they would like to see in an interface, I've often received a 
list of variations on familiar features before any new and innovative 
ideas, and it's easier if we have a starting point to proceed (or back 
away) from.

I would like to organize my ideas and existing notes, share them with 
Kay and Bob, then post some notes on the Wiki.  And of course, I need to 
look closely at Jeff's lower level spec. There's only a month before our 
meeting, so I'll try and get this together right away.

regards
-dougm



Matthias Clausen wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> . . .
>
> Another issue:
> It comes to my mind that the interface for channel access V4 should be 
> also discussed and defined by those people writing the high level 
> (machine)physics applications. They will probably have the highest 
> demand for new features.
> I am thinking of guys like Tom Pelaia, Roland Mueller, Greg White, 
> (Andy Goetz?), and someone from Argonne, Jlab, Cosylab...
> Should we pass them the current state and ask them for their comments?
> Even though this functionality will be mainly used in EPICS Office 
> applications I think we should discuss it inside and outside the EPICS 
> Office framework. Please let me know what you think about it.
> Will Kay and Doug coordinate this issue? Otherwise I'll be glad to help.
>
> Looking forward to see you next month.
>
> Regards
> Matthias