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Progress Report on CCP4 work for BIOXHIT
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Peter Briggs, 4th April 2006

This report summarises the work from the start of 2006 to the end of March
2006.

Summary:
========

In January 2006 WY took part in a Learning Tree training course on SQL
databases, and after this PJB and WY reviewed the current status of the
project. The outcomes of this review were an outline plan of the
components to be worked on and a tasklist.

The key decisions were:

1. Wendy would focus on implementing a fully featured handler in python
   with code to handle CCP4i def files, and integrate this into CCP4i with
   Peter.
2. In parallel Wendy would implement an SQLite database backend in the
   same handler, and would continue to develop the SQL schemas for use by
   the HAPPy and XIA databases.

Work since then has focused on achieving these two objectives. A meeting
in March with GW, CCB and DR reviewed the SQL schema but the main outcome
was to implement a "soft" API for the SQLite backend to allow the relevant
projects to access the rich database backend and start using the database.
Immediate goals now are to get the handler and def file backend working
with CCP4i to iron out technical issues.

Specific tasks:
===============

Wanjuan Yang:

* Attended 1 week SQL database training course
* Attended BIOXHIT 2nd Annual meeting in Grenoble.
* Based on the features from CCP4i Tcl handler, re-designed python
  DB handler.
* Implemented new version of python DB handler based on the new design.
* Created SQL schemas for CCP4 knowledge base/tracking database based on
  the discussion with PJB, CCB, DR and GW.
* Integrated two types of database backends: database.def and SQLite with
  python DB handler.
* Provided initial ClientAPI for python DB handler with SQLite backend.
* Gave a presentation on the DB work at the CCP4 annual developers meeting
  in York in March.

Peter Briggs:

* Wrote python code for interacting with database.def files and
  providing ccp4idb class, to be used in python handler
* Provided documentation for existing Tcl handler and client API
* Prepared poster for BIOXHIT annual meeting in Grenoble and attended
  the meeting
* Initiated contact with Enrico Mariotti at ELETTRA re integration with
  VCS
* Participated in discussions about knowledge base/tracking db content
  with WY, CCB, DR and GW.
* Developed dbconsole and graphviz visualiser client applications using
  existing Tcl client API.