More Spack tips

[j-woz]

From Ozik:

So the topics I have in mind are, some of which you’ve already addressed:

• how to use an existing MPI
• suggest to use an existing Java to avoid the missing URL issue
• how to install additional R packages (suggest to use install.packages within an R interactive session)
• how to install additional Python packages (the Spack py- stuff seems workable, so maybe that’s the way to go, but I haven’t tried pip)
• how to use existing Python installations, with the consistent compiler caveat
• how to use existing R installations, with the same caveat

Then for EMEWS, we could introduce some dependency packages that might set additional items for you:

• EQPy + EQR
• any “generic” Python or R packages (but we might not have enough generic ones)
• the EMEWS templates (Nick is looking into using a Python-based templating engine instead of lazybones)