Organising the chaos
For the last God knows how long, I've had an item on my todo list telling me to create a spreadsheet with details of the disc layout on the supercomputer. Trouble is, it's actually turned out to be really tough task, which probably explains why I've spent such a long time studiously ignoring it in favour of easier, lower hanging, fruit. Not only is the disc data all over the place, but the configuration is way too complicated for a simple spreadsheet and the details need to be routinely updated, so that rules out using Excel to store my results.
My latest idea involves writing a bunch of python modules to munge all the data and spit it out in a Freemind format mindmap. That should let my tie all the details together in a useful way and, if I can get the Java applet working, display it on the intranet. Of course, I expect my colleagues to put up strenuous objections to this on the grounds that (a) they disagree with the use of python and (b) probably disagree with the use of freemind... I suppose if they really don't like it, there's nothing to stop them rewriting it for themselves in Perl and Excel macros.
My latest idea involves writing a bunch of python modules to munge all the data and spit it out in a Freemind format mindmap. That should let my tie all the details together in a useful way and, if I can get the Java applet working, display it on the intranet. Of course, I expect my colleagues to put up strenuous objections to this on the grounds that (a) they disagree with the use of python and (b) probably disagree with the use of freemind... I suppose if they really don't like it, there's nothing to stop them rewriting it for themselves in Perl and Excel macros.