Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Open Development of the XAL Accelerator Application Framework Christopher K. Allen Tom Pelaia Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Presentation_name XAL Workshop: May 3 – 5, 2010  In May of 2010 SNS sponsored the first workshop with specific emphasis on XAL. – Six institutions were represented Cosylab, ESS, FRIB, GANIL, TRIUMF, and SNS  Workshop was oriented toward XAL developers – What changes/features do developers want? – Is there enough common interest (in XAL) to make collaborative development mutually beneficial? – If so, how do we go about it? I discuss the outcome of this meeting and actions following.

3Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Background: What is XAL?  High-level application framework for accelerator systems –Java –Developed for SNS  Hardware configuration and connection –Device oriented –EPICS Channel Access client support  Online accelerator physics modeling –Machine synchronized, or historical data, design parameters… Presentation_name Application for monitoring all XAL applications Also ships with a suite of pre-cooked applications

4Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy XAL in the Control System Hierarchy Accelerator Hardware EPICS ABeans SCiP Hardware Abstraction XAL Matlab Python/Ruby Device Abstraction Control Applications App GUI Scripting/tools

5Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy XAL Requirements  Java: J2SE 6 with JDK  Ant 1.7  Subversion 1.6  (Jython 2.1)  (JRuby 1.4) Presentation_name

6Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy XAL Resources  For more information  For source code svn co xal Presentation_name

7Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Inception  Workshop decided to proceed with collaborative development –Start fresh with new repository and agreed to coding standards –Initial project design and code standards –Identified initial tasks and responsible parties  The new code base is to be called “Open XAL” Presentation_name

8Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Workshop Summary  Open XAL is a (collaborative) effort to standardize XAL –Remove SNS-specific components –Re-factor brittle code –Simplify deployment –Expedite development  Open to all developers –Core code is controlled, however. Specifications are available. –Management of site specific code (XAL Extensions) is left to the individual institutions.  Open to all users –Source and executable is available via SourceForge Presentation_name

9Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Status  Six months since workshop –Initial specifications and designs completed and online –Repository, mailing list, and task management are online –So far two institutions (other than SNS) have actively contributed Presentation_name  Continuing forward –Code migration has begun –Quarterly (online) meetings

10Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Design –Repository/Versioning –Code base structure –Task lists –Code standards –Software design Presentation_name

11Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Conclusions – Open XAL  Collaboration in the continuing development of XAL  Consolidate the divergent branches of XAL –Make XAL more general by removing site specific code –Make XAL more versatile with site extensions which other facilities develop  SNS committed to providing support  Thank you for your attention! Presentation_name XAL SNS J-PARC LANL SLAC

12Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Project Structure  Beginning with well-defined project structure –Core and (site) extensions –Versioning –Code base organization (next slide) Presentation_name

13Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Coding Standards  Multiple developers –Code must be understood –Documentation is crucial (Javadoc!)  Open XAL Core –Must be robust – need quality control –Policies for working with Open XL core Presentation_name  Too many rules No rules 

14Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Core  Separate user and test branches –Core binary can ship without test code –Test suite mirrors development packages Presentation_name Test suites for code validation (developers) XAL core (users and developers) xalcore.jar xaltest.jar

15Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Evolution Presentation_name

16Managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Open XAL Project  Hosting –Repository on SourceForge –Subversion is versioning tool  Development (Follow example of EPICS Collaboration) –Multi-site –Versioned releases –Core and (site) extensions code branches Presentation_name