DevNotes_16Oct2026_Technical

Presentations

Demo of Free-Form SAS work by Yugal Khanal (STFC)

To Discuss

• Refactor Hackathon Review
  • PRs that need review:
    • Attach/Detach Windows: https://github.com/SasView/sasview/pull/4144 - now accepted, ready for merge? YES - merged
    • MuMag + Trends: https://github.com/SasView/sasview/pull/4133 - under review
      • Does this need a second review, or is it ready? - MERGED
    • Plotting Refactor Integration: https://github.com/SasView/sasview/pull/4151 - review requested
  • WIP:
    • Project Board: https://github.com/orgs/SasView/projects/30
  • Adam Washington is working on SasData refactored reader issues next week. The previous PRs have now been merged.
  • Next Hackathon - Early December - Doodle poll
• Planning for Contributor Camp
  • James to present the current status of the refactor project(?). Would need to be Nov. 3 or 4 (or 6/7/8 am-ish PST on a later day).
    • Most likely 3rd or 4th Nov.
  • Expected projects to be worked on
    • Refactoring Data/Magnetism/SAND/Plotting: Paul S., Jeff, Dirk, Annika, Jonathon (remote?), James (remote), Paul N.(Attending? - Probably not)
    • Sasmodels refactor/rework: Paul B., Paul K., Jan Skov (Attending?), Sarah, Marianne
    • Automating Releases and CI Improvements: Anyone to work on them?
    • Bug Fixes, maintenance, etc. (tragedy of the commons)

Next bug fix release version 6.2.1

• Release date: Before contributor camp - aiming for 23rd October
• Release Candidate 1 came out on 12th October
• I intend to create and send out a new Release Candidate
  • This was necessitated by discovery of a bug in the CI, which showed that versions of dependencies were not being updated due to cached environments being used instead.
  • Is our approach to release branches the right one? For this release, we created a branch from the v6.2.0 tag, and therefore used those pinned dependencies throughout the development/release cycle.
• We also found that the CI failed for the first Release Candidate due to the subscription for the Windows signing expiring on 8th October.
  • This means that there are no installers for Release Candidate 1.
  • PR #4161 has addressed this by temporarily disabling Windows signing.
  • Any further updates?
  • When do other signing certificates expire?
    • Certificate renewals handled by main office in Lund. Currently delayed and unsure when it will happen.
    • Can we get something from the ISA?
    • Windows signing used to have physical key, but not the case any longer.
    • Cost is likely most pressing issue.
• Bearing all of this in mind, how should we proceed?
  • PR #4162 updates the pins for our dependencies. Following this release, we need to work out how to ensure dependencies are updated and the correct pins are used for release tags.
  • Does anyone else have access to Windows signing? Possibly Oak Ridge?
  • Longer term, try to get ISA to pay for Windows signing.
• Proposal is to create a new Release Candidate following testing of #4162 on Mac on 19th October, with unsigned Windows installer.
• Please test this and give feedback!
• Release may be delayed to late Nov/Dec 2026. Note that the release will not happen during the contributor camp.

ADRs and other Discussion

• Discussions to bring up:
  • Context files in repo discussion

AOB?