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eclipse newsletter 4.4 |
Dear eclipse users,
This new eclipse release is somewhat special. It does not bring many new changes, functionalities or fundamental design differences with respect to version 4.3. If we bring this release today, it is mainly motivated by the fact that I will be leaving ESO in September and due to holiday shifts, it is possibly the last day when Yves and myself are working together. We felt we had to mark this day as a milestone for the package, since the current version is pretty stable.
So there we are: after 7 years of intensive development, eclipse has finally reached a point where it can sustain the daily data rates of instruments like ISAAC and CONICA, without a single software failure on Paranal over the last 3 years. Not that there were not glitches, but the only segfaults (a handful) we had were due to bugs in the operating system for which we have installed workarounds, usually the same day. This general stability of the library has mostly been obtained thanks to all eclipse users who have been patiently testing our code by using it in zillions of unforeseen ways. I cannot thank you all enough for your invaluable contributions to this code!
In terms of manpower, eclipse represents of the order of 15 to 20 men-years of development (a little bit more than 2 persons/year on average for 7.5 years) and hundreds of men-years spent in testing the code. This enormous effort has been paying back as the code is used a little bit everywhere in the astronomical community as a building brick for more complex pipeline projects.
What happens next? Yves will take care of handling all bug reports, making new releases, and developping further the newer VLT pipelines (NAOS/CONICA, VISIR, ...). eclipse is likely to be part of the software landscape of the VLT for as long as these instruments will live, i.e. over the next 5-10 years. Long live eclipse!
All the best, and many thanks once more for your support.
N. DevillardRead previous eclipse newsletters