Thermo Special Interest Group (Thermo SIG) met on June 7, 2022 from 11 am till 1 pm (Central European Time).
Agenda
Draft the Manager Common Interface Specification
Participants
BASF (represented by Sergej BLAGOV), AmsterCHEM (represented by Jasper van BATEN), University of Cape Town represented by Klaus MÖLLER, Michel PONS (Consultant as Chief Technology Officer).
Highlights
Thermo SIG progressed further the CAPE-OPEN interface specification for Managers. Primarely, the meeting adressed if a given function is made optional or mandatory, and if this optional/mandatory character should be advertised.
The ICapeManager interface implemented on a Manager is specified with an operation supporting the functionality to create Primary PMCs from scratch, on request typically from a PME. From scratch means creating not by de-persisting an existing Object, or by using a Template from the list of Templates given as available from the Manager.
It was discussed if the above described functionality should be made optional rather than mandatory. Thermo SIG agreed that such a functionality (implemented through CreateNew operation) should be non-mandatory, i.e. optional. What is mandatory for a Manager is to display the list of Templates it supports and to enable the access to objects which are de-persisted.
Next it was proposed to define a way for a Manager to advertise it supports or not the creation of Primary PMCs from scratch, in order to avoid relying on an exception raised by CreateNew method for the caller to figure out what happens. Giving the Manager the possibility to advertise its functionality would allow, for example, the caller (PME) to enable/disable any button in its GUI that lets the end-user use the functionality. Advertising was considered as a design requirement. The exact way to make the advertising was not defined yet.
A Manager is given the functionality to display a list of Templates from which the end-user may decide to create a Primary PMC Object from. With the current design, the list of Templates may be returned empty. Thermo SIG discussed the possibility to enforce the existence of a default Template. A suitable business case for that requirement was looked into.
Most Property Package Managers are nowadays provided with example Property Packages. However such examples are easily removable. “Minimal” Property Packages (methane/ethane/propane or water/ethanol) have been much in use for testing or documenting issues. Still a business case seems impossible to find in favor of enforcing a default Template and would even go against easily envisioned situations. For example making mandatory the presence of a default Template does not fit with a Manager where one buys/licenses separately each individual Template.
However for the tests to be conducted with the Test Engine developed by CO-LaN, it could be required for a Manager to be handed over to the Test Engine with a default Template that can surely be exercized, so that the list of Templates displayed could be checked against this default Template and the creation of an Object using this default Template could be exercized and therefore tested.
The name of the function on a Manager that returns the list of Templates supported by the Manager is renamed from GetList to GetTemplateList now that the “Template” terminology has been settled. A note was added to the description of GetTemplateList to mention that the list returned may be empty.*
The specification of CreateFromTemplate function was progressed with specifying explicitely that the name of the Template passed when calling the function must belong to the list of names returned by the function GetTemplateList.
An additional requirement was introduced that the caller is sure of the name of the Template to be created. However no requirement is introduced to request execution of GetTemplateList before executing CreateFromTemplate. Still a best practice is defined as requiring GetTemplateList to be executed before executing CreateFromTemplate.
Next meeting is scheduled for June 21, 2022.
