Welcome to the JMP Development Update for January 20, 2023!
Developers requested approval for a handful of JMP 17.1 fixes this week as we continue to move towards our Code Freeze milestone on 1/27/23. In addition to all the work being done to wrap up 17.1, we are also preparing to freeze our initial
JMP 18 Early Adopter alpha on 2/3/23.
If you would like product management to invite specific users to join the JMP 18 EA program to provide feedback on new features or functionality, please reach out to Mia Stephens. The initial EA Enrollment period ends Feb 3 (but users can be invited after the launch of EA1). Please see this article for more information, including what makes a good candidate for the EA program.
Thanks very much to Audrey Shull and Sarah Sylvestre for demoing and discussing some of the Jira updates that have been made since we moved to the Atlassian cloud! Now that we have more control over the setup of our projects, members of the admin team have been working on cleaning up fields and values and enhancing our setup to better fit our needs. I appreciate all the efforts of the admin team and also want to say thank you to Myron Chandler for rewriting the JiraBot functionality to work on the cloud architecture. If you missed the meeting, you can find a recording here in Sharepoint. (Please request access if you cannot access it, but it should be open to all.)
In the meeting, Sarah shared how to use the revised Feature Readiness Checklist in Jira and the Feature Page template in Confluence. If you need a refresher, you can reach out to Sarah, review the recording and look at this how-to page. Remember: Feature pages should be used for anything that we want to communicate to the EA program for feedback. Anything that has a new feature page should have a Feature Readiness Checklist in Jira. It bears repeating that the JMP 18 EA1 Freeze takes place on 2/3/23, so please have the feature pages and checklists in place by then if you want your feature to be highlighted.
Last week there was no dev update due to our Rest and Recharge day, so I wanted to make sure to also include a link this week to the presentation Bryan Fricke coordinated last Thursday. Thanks to Bryan and all the other R&D team members who shared experiments and insights gained from usability studies. You can find the recording here in Sharepoint. Hopefully their presentation encouraged others to pursue usability efforts in the JMP 18 cycle!
Finally, thanks very much to Audrey Shull for sharing this week’s Confluence Tip of the Week!
Be on the lookout for links that go to our old Confluence instance on the SAS R&D server. They should be rare, but we still see them from time to time, especially in old tracks, cases, defects or issues.
- The biggest clue that you’re in the wrong place is that you’ll be asked to login, which we never see anymore.
- The next clue will be that you can’t edit the page.
If you do encounter this, please try pressing the Back button until you get back to the source page with the bad link, and either update it or send Audrey a link to the page and she’ll take care of it. Atlassian took care of most of these bad links for us during the migration, but their script strategy clearly wasn’t perfect. Thanks for your help!
General Announcements
- If you’re willing to be a featured employee on Inside JMP, please download a copy of the Get to Know form. Simply fill out the questions and when you’re done, upload it, along with 3 photos of you to the folder. Thank you for helping to make our JMP family a little more familiar!
Important Upcoming Dates
- JMP 17.1 Code Freeze – 1/27/23
- JMP 18 EA1 Freeze – 2/3/23
- JMP 18 EA2 Freeze – 4/7/23
- Please visit Confluence for a full list of JMP 17 and JMP 18 dates.
JMP Development Updates
JMP Live
- Aurora: 18.0: Support fetching the entire folder tree structure for a given *folder*. Convenience updates to Publish On Client (data table vs. post flexibility, data post title & description). A bit of refactoring. Miscellaneous: Preparation for JMP Discovery. Answered minor Git questions here and there, but they have now quiesced, and the transition to Git was pretty smooth.
Statistics
- John Sall: Continued development on the front end to Chris's new mixed model numerics. On my old MacPro here are three benchmark runs:
- comb_geno_w_num_49041 with 249 rows 49,041 random effect columns in 0.456 seconds.
- DoubleHaploids with 3527 rows 4612 random effect columns in 66 seconds.
- chr10_emaize with 4754 rows and 135,608 random effect columns in 701 seconds.
This makes our software a worthy competitor to ASREML (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYMoQGHmmps). See JMP 18 Mixed Model Planning for more details.
- Elizabeth: Added the lognormal distribution to GLMM and have the exponential distribution almost ready. Worked on providing a warning or error to users with a large number of random effects that may cause JMP to become unresponsive (or possibly just take a very, very long time). Thanks to Evan McCorkle for talking through that. Discussed various mixed model things separately with both James and Caleb live and in person!
- Ryan P: Completed final planned fixes for 17.1 (JMP-13406, JMP-13319). These provide Wavelets DOE diagnostic plots so that users can better evaluate their WDOE model fit, and they can now optimize parameters to a desired target function.
- Laura C-S: Working on four presentations, all happening within a couple weeks: Discovery Europe, Conference for Statistical Practice, Psychology Department at UC Davis, and Odum Institute at UNC-CH. Recorded the one for Discovery so just three more to go.
- Annie: Continued working on adding functionality to the Short Run Control Charts (JMP-8266), fixing JMP-15211, JMP-15212, and several other issues Tonya has spotted so far.
Stat Documentation
- Michael C: Triaged stat doc Jiras for 18.0 work, helped Susan with prepping the doc files to be version 18, reviewed some Scripting Index updates for Colleen.
Stat Testing
- Mark: Working with Jacob on his new tool for making a usability study. Preparing introduction of this tool with 'show and tell' for the next weekly JMP Stat Dev meeting. Testing Easy DOE with Jacob. Helping Bryan with proposal for exploring new UI/UX ideas to enhance JMP. Working with Caleb to specify a new site for JMP technical resources. Answer questions in the JMP Community.
- Tonya: Researching and testing the new short run control charts.
Life Sciences Updates
- Meichen: The Multivariate Embedding platform has two methods (TSNE and UMAP) in 17.1. Planning ahead for a dev demo in February to highlight this platform!
Product Management
- Thanks to Dan Valente for sharing this article he wrote for sales on selling JMP premium products – JMP Pro, JMP Clinical, and JMP Live!
- Bryan F: Updated the splash screens for the JMP 18 installer and product. I also discussed ways to enhance our report window help with several staff members, met with Praveena and John to modify the appearance of HTML5 reports, and created prototype icons for the PyTorch image classification feature. Additionally, I participated in information sessions and provided feedback on an Atlassian prioritization tool and Gather Products.
Technical Support
Development Operations
- Jim B: Reported Jira issues from the results of the weekly ASAN and LEAKS UT runs, worked with Nan on JMPTOOL-675, and updated Student and Subscription installers on mac OS for JMP-15247. Perforce support.
- Myron: Small crash systems fixes: (attachment links, discard files). Worked on JMPTOOL-642: modify XSTR compile job and separate run, JMPTOOL-662: add language to telemetry database schema, and JMPTOOL-505: sample data processing.
- Bob: Version 18 EA work. The license will be same as with 17, and some addin changes were made, with some more modifications to come. Splash screens for 18 received from Bryan Fricke and put into JMP 18 windows installers. Met with JMP Live team to discuss changes for 17.1 installer needed as a result of not being able to use SAS processing for full software release.
- Melanie: Troubleshot and fixed a FM problem that affected the doc handoff to localization for 17.1. Worked with Howard to add a check for this problem in the future. Updated the localization autointegration confluence page to reflect current processes. Reviewed some changes Myron and I are making to the job(s) that create xstr files. General Jira updates and triage.
Documentation
- Susan C: Reviewed PDFs and made small updates to JMP Live install help per Bob’s info. Created a mapping of text insets to books in Confluence. Finished up a string review. Reset the files for the books, only Genetics outstanding (had issues with FrameMaker).
System/Host Testing-Cary
- Mandy: Working on finalizing my Workflow paper for Europe, to record it next Thursday. Running Tabulate test builds for Dan S. due to a fix we thought was fixed, but then had a regression and crashed. Testing it today in 18 on Mac and Windows and he will most likely request it for 17.1 – as it can cause regressions if pushed out (JMP-7823).
- Hui: Continued working on adding testcases for interactive HTML5 testing automation suite - set up a query on HTML5 tooltip defects on Jira for a collection of test case candidates for Interactive HTML5 testing automation, examined and tested user case scenarios, and reported an HTML5 regression (JMPHTML-1950). Investigated possibility of a potential semi automation process to find regression culprit using JMP runner. Attended seminars from NAAAP.
- Mike M: JMP 17.1 help reviews for JMP Live/Public/HTML5 docs. Found several issues referencing 17.0 in the docs. Looking to complete Early Installer testing for 17.1 by later today. Working to quiet 2 noisy image tests. Verified several 17.1 defects. Starting to familiarize myself more with AWS before our Demo next week.
- Josh L: JMP Live stress testing on the distributed environment, supporting the JMP Live and HTML 5 team when they have issues related to the test servers. In the process of adding 2 JMP Live 18 test servers in AWS to cover our different authentication mechanisms. Regression testing publishing from JMP 17.0, 17.1 to JMP Live 17.1 due to some 3rd party updates.
- Hunter: Ran test with the latest SAS Download Manager 2.94 on the Mac to verify a recent copyright change in SDWIT-906, verified several JMP 17.1 defects, and working on the early installer testing for JMP 17.1.
- Lisa G: Testing a bug for zero-height bars that was causing clipping on the x axis and testing new map server.
- Audrey: demo and prep for it, installer test scenarios and following up about issues discovered during this week’s Early Installer Test sweep.
- Anna: Early installer testing for 17.1.
System/Host Testing-Beijing
- Mike Wu: (1) Asked help from Jim for reconfiguring the lab Mac machine’s Oracle DSN due to recent Oracle database migration from old wmc server to the new fedora21c server - https://jmpdiscovery.atlassian.net/browse/JMPTOOL-675; Also updated the Oracle related unit tests after Jim completed the reconfiguration for Mac lab machines. (2) JMP 17.1 Early Install testing completed. (3) JMPC 17.1 publishing to JMP Live testing for some Findings reports.
- Kimi: (1) Update the UT JSL for new oracle server - Done (2) JMP 17.1 Early Installer Testing, details refer to JMPTESTBJ-1847 - Done. (3) Verified story [JMP-13277] Update to latest Azul JVM - Jira (atlassian.net) - Done (4) JMP Clinical 17.1 Testing- publish reports for Nicardipine to JMP Live, details refer to JMPTESTBJ-1851 – Done
- Da Zhang: (1) Completed JMP Clinical 17.1 Testing- publish reports for Nicardipine to JMP Live.
- Nala: (1) Completed JMP Clinical 17.1 Testing- publish reports for Nicardipine to JMP Live
Data Discovery
- Xan: Adding more Header Graph options, most notably a Run Chart for both continuous and categorical columns.
- Ernest: Adding header stats to data table, in progress, feedback welcome. Switched ScriptItem version specifications to use enum (ex. JMPVersion::v18 instead of 18). Cleaning up Columns Viewer for EA1.
- Dan S: Working on display focus issues with Aaron, fixed a local data filter copy/paste issue, continued work on Tabulate packed columns, and fixed a drag/drop issue in dashboards.
- Sibusiso: Implementing a space optimization algorithm for displayHier (hierbox tree structure). Doing STIPS training and a few code improvements in Tabulate.
- Evan: Performance investigation for JSL user functions used with Nonlinear. Investigating new subscripting syntax for JSL.
- Dave B: Working customer request to customize table display fonts.
DOE
- Peng: Mainly in JMP18 development mode doing refactoring work in DOE and initial work on fatigue data analysis.
Host
- Paul: New map server is running, but still in the process of pre-rendering map tiles at the higher zoom levels. Adding database indexes to try to speed up rendering of tiles. Audrey and her team are starting to test against the map server. The new map server can be accessed by JMP 17, 18 but it is not the default. The primary purpose of the server is to support JMP 16 and earlier.
- Daniel: The work to increase availability and security in our AWS Activation System is working well in DEV and TEST, so that should complete soon. I’m also working to add a Scripting Index entry for opening HDF5 files in JSL along with a new JSL command to return a list of members in an HDF5 file!
HTML5
- John P: Completed Q4 wrap up conversations and documentation. Built performance benchmark tests and started analyzing some results.
Investigated an issue with Oneway marker tooltips(JMPHTML-1940) and discovered another one (JMPHTML-1941) while testing a potential solution. Discussed UI improvements with Bryan Fricke and Praveena. Had a follow up discussion with our external recruiter. Participated in end of sprint and sprint planning meetings.
- Mayowa: Worked on updating performance tests for mosaics and tables, created new performance tests for parallel plots. Analyzing the results to see opportunities to improve performance.
- Praveena: Working on benchmark testing and analysis for the following components: Maps, Histogram, Markers, Bars.
- Mike S: Spent the week setting up my new Windows machine, learning more about JMP code and testing, and continuing the STIPS course.
Note from Shannon
Thanks to JMP tester Hui Di for sharing this note – “Tomorrow is the Lunar New Year’s Eve. Is Year of the Rabbit lucky in 2023? The sign of Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in Chinese culture. 2023 is predicted to be a year of hope!”
The JMP Beijing test team also wishes you a Happy Lunar New Year! We all hope you enjoy the holiday too! Have a great weekend, everyone!
