[MITgcm-devel] instruction about downloading

[Ed Hill]

On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 11:15 +0200, Martin Losch wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> you probably discussed this already in one of your doc-fest meeings (or 
> another time), but when I asked a collegue this morning to follow the 
> instruction on
> http://mitgcm.org/using_cvs.html
> and download the code, she did this:
> cvs co MITgcm_contrib
> (which, of course is not what you can read on the web-page, but "cvs co 
> MITgcm MITgcm_contrib")
> 
> Do the instructions suggest checking out *both* MITgcm and 
> MITgcm_contrib? I don't think that a first time user is really 
> interested in the contrib and you get a lot of stuff from 
> MITgcm_contrib, or is this a singular opinion?

Hi Martin,

The "quick" instructions that people should always see first are:

  http://mitgcm.org/source_code.html

and they have for a long time just recommended the simple "cvs co
MITgcm".  And I've now edited the more detailed directions at

  http://mitgcm.org/using_cvs.html

to make it *very* clear what the recommended commands are, what they do,
and why you probably want to avoid downloading the full MITgcm_contrib.

Ed

ps - The docs at the second link have for a long time *CLEARLY*
described how the full "cvs co MITgcm MITgcm_contrib" was overkill for
most people and showed various ways to reduce the volume of stuff
downloaded.  Whoever did what you described obviously didn't put much
effort into reading the docs.  But thats typical.

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
office:  MIT Dept. of EAPS;  Rm 54-1424;  77 Massachusetts Ave.
             Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
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