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Support for distinguishing data from parameters #18

Closed tmcphillips closed 9 years ago

tmcphillips commented 9 years ago

The inputs to scripts, and to steps in scripts, often can be viewed either as data (the data to be processed by the script or step) or as parameters (values that control how that data is processed). Currently it can be difficult to discern the (possibly more important) data flows in the views produced by YW-Graph from the (less important) application of parameter settings. Here is a proposal for addressing this issue:

  1. Add support for @param comments on code blocks to indicate parameters. The existing @in comments would continue to be interpreted as data inflows.
  2. Add a setting to YW project files (see issue #16) for indicating that YW-Graph should emphasize graph nodes, edges, and labels representing data over those representing parameters, or to hide parameter flows entirely.

The future YW-Query module also should enable data and parameters to be distinguished.

ludaesch commented 9 years ago

Agreed. It's also a modeling question: do I, as the script/workflow author view something as data or as a parameter. Yes, sometimes you don't want a strict distinction or you do "meta-programming" where somebody's parameter port is your data port.

Nevertheless (or because of that), a YW annotator should be able to express his/her view on what is considered data and what is a parameter (in addition to those two being treated differently by the runtime system; cf. Kepler/Ptolemy)

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 8:07 PM, Timothy McPhillips <notifications@github.com

wrote:

The inputs to scripts, and to steps in scripts, often can be viewed either as data (the data to be processed by the script or step) or as parameters (values that control how that data is processed). Currently it can be difficult to discern the (possibly more important) data flows in the views produced by YW-Graph from the (less important) application of parameter settings. Here is a proposal for addressing this issue:

1.

Add support for @param comments on code blocks to indicate parameters. The existing @in comments would continue to be interpreted as data inflows. 2.

Add a setting to YW project files (see issue #16 https://github.com/yesworkflow-org/yw-prototypes/issues/16) for indicating that YW-Graph should emphasize graph nodes, edges, and labels representing data over those representing parameters, or to hide parameter flows entirely.

The future YW-Query module also should enable data and parameters to be distinguished.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/yesworkflow-org/yw-prototypes/issues/18.