Tripal User's Meeting 2018/06/01

Meeting Date
Attendees

Ethy (ISU)

Stephen Ficklin, Shawna Spoor (WSU)

Lacey-Anne Sanderson (USASK)

Nic Herndon (UConn)

Blake Inderski (USDA-ARS, Ames)

Monica Poelchau (USDA-NAL)

Valentin Guignon (Bioversity International, CGIAR)

Meg Staton (UTK)

Bradford Condon (UTK)

Malachy O’Connell (ISU)

Nathan Weeks (USDA-ARS, Ames)

 

Reminders

  • Previous meeting notes here: http://tripal.info/meetings/users/summary

  • Consider adding your modules into the Tripal GitHub organization.

    • You can make your own team in the github repo.  Ask stephen/lacey/meg for permission to join the Tripal organization.

  • Tag your modules on GitHub with the "tripal" topic so we can find them all.

  • Remember to update the status of your modules on the Tripal.info site.  

    • If you need a login let us know. You have to email one of the admins.

  • Code with other users in mind, try to co-develop with others, submit issues when help is needed and try to help others

  • Please consider adding Unit Testing to your extension modules.

  • Help Desk call June 15th.

  • New releases of Tv2 and Tv3 this summer.

 

Governance Progress Updates

  • We have formed an interim Project Management Committee (PMC):  Stephen Ficklin, Lacey Sanderson, Bradford Condon

    • Reminder, the PMC ultimately should consist of coders and committers to help setup governance rules and develop the documents and manage the project

    • Please consider adding to our discussion about Governance here: https://github.com/tripal/tripal/issues/344

    • We have a slack workspace. Anyone who would like to be involved in governance issues can join.  Just let us know and we will add you.

    • Goal: July 1st have Code Contributions document.  

  • We will have an open meeting in August or September to discuss Tripal v4 design.

 

Open Meeting Agenda Items

Please add discussion items here

  • Help Desk or Training this month?

    • Didn’t have one last month for multiple reasons

    • Training topics?

    • Currently keeping with the schedule: help desk

    • Shawna sends out an email the week before asking if there’s anyone with topics

      • Most topics will be addressed, you get paired with a developer for one-on-one time

      • They’re awesome so please let us help you :-)

  • Nic:  Drupal question

    • Upload data via Tripal Galaxy

    • Proper way to pass data from Chado to a Galaxy instance

    • Drupal File API

      • Managing deletion of unused files

      • Tripal Galaxy ties into the Drupal File system

      • Stores some metadata about the file

    • Tripal integration with the Drupal File API uses HTML5 chunking to allow uploading and updating of very large files.

  • Ethy how to make collaborations better

    • ACTION ITEM: we continually encourage collaboration so tips/thoughts on how to make it happen would be helpful

    • ACTION ITEM:  Bring this back up for next month's meeting on 7/6

    • An example of collaboration working well is the Tripal BLAST UI (Ethy, Lacey, Sofia, Bradford). Perhaps it’s that we’re committed to collaborating?

      • This module was very broadly applicable so perhaps more people are invested

      • Very clearly defined what it is trying to do

    • Ethy's observations

      • Some highly committed groups have failed despite good intentions

      • It takes time and discipline that is challenging.

      • the person who was lead on the project did not give support when others needed it.

    • Ethy would love to collaborate on breeding support but it’s such an amorphous concept which makes it hard to find common ground

    • Barriers Stephen has encountered is

      • time

        • Can’t provide support

        • Need the functionality now

      • Culture: pride

        • Don’t want to ask for help

        • My way is better

    • Meg: Align priorities up front and throughout

      • Be transparent as to what you want and how much time you have

      • Also is the intent a general module or just “I’ll make and you can try it if you want”

        • Sometime there isn’t time to make it generic and it’s good to know if this is a goal from the start or if there just isn’t time

    • Bradford noticed he is contributed more to others but others are not contributing to his modules.  (he offers as a thought discussion, not because he is whiny. honest.)

      • How can he make it clear he is open to collaboration?

      • Are his modules not broadly useful?

      • Ethy commented: perhaps folks don't know what you're working on.

      • It’s hard to contribute to large projects since there’s a lot of code to become familiar with

    • Tripal Extension page

      • Much more community engagement?

      • This could be the portal to making these collaboration works

      • ACTION ITEM: Filter could include the lead on the project

      • If you’re curious what modules HWG maintains and uses: https://github.com/statonlab/hardwoods_site

      • ACTION ITEM: Add a help wanted tag, users wanted, etc.

      •  

      • Perhaps we should make the list as owners rather than require people to maintain it.

        • Use the github api?

      • It would be nice to have a listing of the Tripal sites and which modules each site uses.

        • This way if there’s functionality you like you have a shopping list of modules to check out

      • Github issue Created: https://github.com/tripal/tripal/issues/402

    • What is the search URL for all Tripal modules on Github ?

 

Summary of Tripal v3 Users and Available Modules

Please add your site/module to this list if you are upgrading/on Tripal 3