VMD-L Mailing List

From: hinsen_at_llb.saclay.cea.fr
Date: Sun Oct 24 2004 - 03:47:15 CDT

On 22.10.2004, at 22:40, John Stone wrote:

> to try and do this as well as a number of other related Python
> improvements
> before 1.8.3 gets released. None of the libraries VMD uses are really
> "permanent versions", but we often choose to stick with well-tested
> revs
> for two releases in a row since that avoids the possibility of new bugs
> creeping in as a result of library upgrades. I haven't upgraded the

That's a reasonable choice, and doesn't bother anyone except for the
Python stuff, which always depends on items outside the VMD
distribution.

I have similar issues with VMD's Python support as Lars, but I have
drawn a different conclusion: I don't use it any more. Which is a bit
ironic, considering that I do nearly all my computational work in
Python. But making VMD and Python compatible is a lot of work, and even
though I might be willing to do it for my own machines, I would end up
doing lots of tech support for my collaborators who couldn't use my
code.

Since this is really "just" a build issue, it could be solved at least
for those platforms that have automated build procedures (RPMs and
Debian packages for Linux, fink for MacOS). And I guess there would be
volunteers to do the necessary adaptation of the build scripts. Does
that sound like a promising approach?

Konrad.