2022 03/09 - 15:00 UT

Attendees

Contact Information

• Doodle: https://doodle.com/meeting/organize/id/Ddw2NK8b
• Zoom Details: 
  • Link: https://alma.zoom.us/j/89951868655?pwd=cmNxaHpZNUp4a3RXcjNCTDBiTXlBQT09
  • Pass: acs2022Q1

Action Items from previous meeting:

• Blog / Documentation
  •  Completions
    • What is code generated from ACSERRDEF and what needs to be implemented by the developers?
    • Hands-on each programming language
      • Including the check of the completion's state
  • Alarm System documentation seems a bit stale
    • Is the latest documentation (~2014) still valid?
    • Could it be updated and moved to Confluence?
  • More simple examples for all programming languages
    • It seems Java has received more attention, but it would be nice to have examples in all programming languages

Updates since last Meeting:

• 2021DEC + 2022FEB + 2022APR Releases

• ACS Changes

  • Obsolescence Management Roadmap

    • Script to analyze Python and Java dependencies
      • Compare information from Maven/Pip, installed packages and Python Dependencies and Java Dependencies pages
    • Java (15 changes)
      • Compatibility with Java 11 and Java 17 (LTS versions)
      • Cleanup of duplicated dependencies (Maven + Tarballs on repository)
    • Python (20 changes)
      • Python 3.8 as default (2022FEB+)
      • Python ACS Log updated for compatibility
    • ACE/TAO (7.0.6)
    • OmniORB/OmniORBpy (4.3.0)
    • ACS to offer C++17 if available
      • Minimum standard supported by the compiler is C++11 now
    • RHEL 8 compatible version of some Tools and libraries:
      • Tcl/Tk to be used from O.S. if 8.6.8+ available (Skips ACS installation)
        • Additional TCL scripts and libraries are still installed by the buildTcltk script
      • Swig to be used from O.S. if 3.0.12+ available (Skips ACS installation)
      • Boost to be used from O.S. if 1.66+ available (Skips ACS installation)
      • astyle to be used from O.S. if 3.1+ available (Skips ACS installation)
      • xerces-c to be used from O.S. if 3.2.2+ available (Skips ACS installation)
      • cppunit is already skipped if found on the O.S. Version changed to 1.14.0+
      • doxygen/graphviz are already skipped if found on the O.S. Version changed to 1.8.14+/2.40.1+
  • OpenDDS
    • Upgrade of OpenDDS 
    • Integration of LLAMA's work for acsnc openDDS compatibility with new version
    • Integration of LLAMA's work on bulkDataNT with OpenDDS plus support for multicast
  • Several new Makefile improvements with first user (ALMA CONTROL Software)
  • EventGUI fix for disabled buttons
  • Prevent Python container hang on activation of a wrongly deployed component (wrong code provided)
  • Prevent PySimpleClient's at_exit disconnect call if it has already been done
  • Prevent manager's stale connection (COMM_FAILURE) when communicating with a container that is trying to log in after hard reboot
  • RTI DDS bulkDataNT throughput doubled+
    • Need to check whether the change is compatible with bulkDataNT on OpenDDS
  • BulkDataNT Makefile improved to better handle parallel compilation
  • BulkDataNT can now be used without ACS running (-g flag)
  • New helper static method ORBHelper::checkObject(obj) allows to check an object's connection and refresh stale connections that can be reestablished
    • Useful before oneway method calls and callback method execution
  • Scripts for basic component code generation (Python, C++ and Java)
  • TAT module's tests stabilization for RHEL 8
  • TAT log parser now detects skipped tests and add them to junit report
• Other news
  • ACS Operating System Support
    • CentOS 8 support has been dropped by RHEL and some repositories are no longer available
      • ACS official support is now CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 and CentOS Stream 8 / RHEL 8
    • Added lower support levels for CentOS Stream 9, Fedora 34, 35, Debian 10, 11, Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04
    • Compatibility changes in ACS to work with several operating systems

2022 Planning:

• Re-design Notification Channels
  • ActiveMQ Prototype
• BulkData
  • ZeroMQ Prototype
  • OpenDDS Implementation
• Obsolescence Management
• C++ Modernization Project
  • Loki removal
    • Smart pointers replaced by std::shared_ptr: Smart Pointers
    • Loki singleton replaced by C++ static variables: Singleton Pattern
  •  ACE TSS replaced by C++ thread_local: Thread Local Storage
  • Logging system study, improvements and redesign plans
  • ACS enables C++17
    • Will use C++11 features for now
    • Other projects can decide to take advantage of C++14 and C++17 features on their development

Other institutions plans and proposed topics

• Another alternative to RTIDDS/OpenDDS

Any other business?

Conclusions/Action Items