Pre-CRC/release tasks

UI tasks

Release-critical

• CF N-way performance comparison first-cut for Frank.

• CF algorithm specification screen: implement
• CF left side of landing page: task selection/presentation according to pattern concept
• CF experiment specification and monitor screens from a pattern template, and procedure-specific requirements (may require DB changes)
• CF instance specification screen: implement (requires DB change)
• CF Execution environment specification (incl. R, Gnuplot, java locations; requires DB change)
• CN RTDs/per-target-algorithm-run monitoring and navigation

Important

• Data management interface:
  • deleting runs/expts/etc.
  • data export
• Error logging/handling/browsing
• Plotting ex-gnuplot
• Named configurations, ability to specify name for final incumbent a priori and reference it in subsequent comparison experiments.

Database tasks

Release-critical

• CN Named instance set table done
• CN Named configuration table done
• CN Execution environment table
• CN Configuration spaces vs. algorithms; appropriate unique ID hashing

Important

• Connection pooling
• Caching analysis results
• Database schema -- speed-related redesign
• Query optimization
• Selective limitation of run-level logging (dynamic based on runtime?)

Nice-to-have

• DataManager API refinement
• Stale connection issue; incl. robustness to general network issues
• Read-only DataManager connection for use by individual MA procedures

Code/Robustness/Misc. tasks

Important

• user-facing documentation (help)
• Better logging/error-reporting (to console/within HAL). eg: log4j
• Better handling of overhead runtime vs. target algorithm runtime
• WAY more unittests; also functional/integration tests

Nice-to-have

• developer-facing documentation (javadocs)

Medium-term Plans

• Packaging complete experiments
• Windows support
• libraries of:
  • search/optimization procedures
  • machine learning tools
• multi-algorithm comparisons
• scaling analyses
• bootstrapped analyses
• robustness analyses
• parameter response analyses
• SATzilla in HAL
• ParamILS in HAL
• Parallel portfolios in HAL
• ActiveConfigurator in HAL
• Iterated F-Race in HAL
• chained-procedure experiments
• support for optimization/Monte-Carlo experiments
• support instance generators
• Git, not CVS
• Support text-file inputs and outputs for external algorithms
• Instance features
• Explicit representation of problems (e.g. particular instance formats)
• Experiments calling experiments, not just external target algs
• array jobs in SGE
• Hashing everything, including instances, instance sets and configurations.

Feature Requests

• (FH) Support for complete configuration experiment, front to back: run configurator N times on a training set, report the N training and test set performances
• (FH) Developers of configurators should be able to swap in new versions of a configurator
• (FH) Configuration scenarios, specifying a complete configuration task including the test set; only missing part being the configurator
• (FH) Saveable sets of configuration scenarios to perform (use case: I change the configurator and want to evaluate it)
• (FH) Taking this a step further: support for optimizing a parameterized configurator (configurator is an algorithm, and the above set of experiments is the set of "instances")
• (FH) Submitting runs from a machine that is itelf a cluster submit host should not need to go through SSH
• (CF) Distinction made in HAL between parameterised and parameter-less algorithms, including the ability to see the "parent" parameterised algorithm of a given parameter-less algorithm. Other similar queries would be equally useful (all SPEAR configurations, the parameterised algorithm corresponding to a partial instantiation of another parameterised algorithm, etc.) (CN) need to flesh out how this interacts with named configurations/configuration spaces also under discussion
• (CF) Ability to browse algorithms, instances, instance sets, configurations, etc. This includes the ability to see things related to the item being browsed. Performance of different algorithms/configurations on a given instance, performance of algorithms across an instance set, performance of a given configuration.
• (CF) Form validation.
• (CF) Wider support for working directory requirements of individual algorithm runs, i.e. Concorde's creation of 20 files with fixed names.
• (CN) Ability to actively manage database, including properly cascaded deletion of elements.

Known Bugs:

• (CN) JSC test reliability issue (compared to R)
• (CN) end-of-experiment hanging bug (GGA, multinode cluster runs)
• (JS) InnoDB SQL errors (CN): fixed 11/05/10
• (LX) missing current-time point in solution quality trace, so don't see the final "flat line"
• (CN) accuracy of mid-run overhead accounting for PILS/GGA
• (CF) Configuration file callstrings with weird spaces, i.e. "... -param '$val$ blah' ..." where '$val blah' needs to be passed to the target as a single argument. (CN) does this work with double-quotes instead of single-quotes?
• (JS) FixedConfigurationExperiment UI is outdated, unusable.
• (JS) HAL is not usable on WestGrid. We need a TorqueClusterExecutionManager.
• (JS) Algorithms with a requirement of a new directory for each run.