Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"J. Lewis Muir" <[email protected]> · Mon, 7 Nov 2016 10:57:26 -0600

On 11/06, Mark Rivers wrote:
> The motor module home is on github here:
> 
> https://github.com/epics-modules/motor

Sorry to hijack this thread, but if I do a Google search for "epics
motor record" (without the quotes), the above GitHub page isn't even on
the first page of results.  A search for "epics motor module" (without
the quotes) does return the above GitHub page on the first page of
results, but it's the 7th or 8th result from the top.  The top result
for both searches is:

  http://www.aps.anl.gov/bcda/synApps/motor/

That page says, "This is the home page for both the motor record and
various motor controllers supported by motor record device/drivers."
There is no mention of the GitHub page.  At the bottom, it also says,
"Page Last Modified: 04/06/2007," yet it lists module R6-9 with a
release date of "01/07/2015".

I appreciate the work people are doing, but I feel that it's really
unclear where a lot of the APS BCDA synApps project homes are.

If the motor module's home is now on GitHub, then the BCDA synapps/motor
page should have a statement at the top saying that.  Even better
would be an HTTP redirect to the GitHub project page.  If the BCDA
synapps/motor page is meant to remain as the website for the motor
module while the GitHub page is the development hosting page for
developers, that's fine too, but the website page should clearly point
people to the project page on GitHub for development.

I thought I'd check some other synApps modules, so I navigated to the
BCDA home page:

  https://www1.aps.anl.gov/BCDA

I clicked on Software, and none of the pages for the modules listed
under synApps reference a GitHub development page.

Again, I do appreciate the work being done, but I think the web pages
are confusing at the moment.

On another note, I noticed there's a 1 after the www in the hostname
part of the BCDA home page URL?  Is that some kind of load-balancing
or failover scheme?  Maybe not since www2 doesn't work.  Even if
it was, shouldn't that be internal rather than public?  I would
expect the BCDA home page to be hosted on www.aps.anl.gov just
like EPICS is; that would be consistent.  I wouldn't mention this
if I got redirected to www1 from www (presumably as part of a
load-balancing scheme), but <https://www.aps.anl.gov/BCDA> does not
work. <https://www1.aps.anl.gov/BCDA> seems to be the only URL that
works, and that seems like a strange URL for the BCDA home page.

Thanks,

Lewis

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System