[Rivet] Plans for Rivet 1.8.0 release

[Andy Buckley]

Hi all,

It's about time for another Rivet release. Since 1.7.0 we've had a major 
change (improvement!) to the Jet interfaces, and Frank S wanted to 
improve the W/ZFinder interfaces a bit more (what's the status of that, 
Frank?), so the next release will have to be 1.8.0.

After this I think we have to aim to not change the API in the 1.x 
series, and to get the YODA branch into the trunk asap.

So, what's left to do for 1.8.0:

* I would like to split the MC_GENERIC analysis into several distinct 
analyses, since the current collection is rather a mish-mash, grown 
according to validation/sanity checking needs. In particular I'd like to 
separate the identified hadron rates into a separate MC_HADRONS, since 
it takes make-plots a *very* long time to plot the ~3000 bins of the PID 
histograms (it's not clever enough to merge all the consecutive empty 
bins into a single Postscript line). I might also add a specific 
charged+neutral min bias MC analysis that I wrote for ATLAS pile-up studies.

* W/ZFinder changes?

* New analyses near completion: ATLAS W+jets (done by Frank S), 
inclusive leptons (done by Holger), diffractive gaps (by Tim Martin, 
being checked by Holger and co.) Any non-ATLAS new analyses almost ready 
to go in? I think there may be an LHCb one from Alex Grecu still to be 
integrated.

* Other changes?

After this release, we really do need to merge the YODA branch into the 
trunk, and make new 1.8.x releases (and 1.9.x if _forced_) from a 
maintenance branch. The YODA merge will break things, but I think we're 
nearly at the point where that will be tolerable, and will certainly be 
fixed much faster by having several people working on it than just 
Hendrik, David, and myself once every other month! Histogram 
inflexibility has got to be the #1 Rivet FAQ at the moment, so making 
this upgrade is long overdue.

Any comments, objections, etc.?

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
Dr Andy Buckley
SUPA Advanced Research Fellow
Particle Physics Experiment Group, University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.