---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'PlasmaPy Community Meeting | Tuesday 2021 January 12 at 18:00 UT'
tags: [community, ' minutes']

---

---
tags: community, minutes
---

# PlasmaPy Community Meeting | Tuesday 2021 January 12 at 18:00 UT

[![hackmd-github-sync-badge](https://hackmd.io/voNgWsF1Rge-xzUnQDHmXQ/badge)](https://hackmd.io/voNgWsF1Rge-xzUnQDHmXQ)


### Video Conference Information
* [Jitsi video conference link](https://meet.jit.si/plasmapy) with [call-in information](https://meet.jit.si/static/dialInInfo.html?room=plasmapy) 
* Instant messaging: [Matrix](https://app.element.io/#/room/#plasmapy:openastronomy.org) and [Gitter](https://gitter.im/PlasmaPy/Lobby)
* [GitHub Minutes Repository](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/plasmapy-project/tree/master/minutes)
    * ["Community" Sub-directory](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/plasmapy-project/tree/master/minutes/_community)
* [PlasmaPy on GitHub](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/plasmapy) ([pull requests](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/plasmapy/pulls), [issues](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/plasmapy/issues))
* [PlasmaPy Enhancement Proposals on GitHub](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy-PLEPs) 
* [PlasmaPy Google Calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar?cid=bzVsb3ZkcW0zaWxsam00ZTlrMDd2cmw5bWdAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ)

## Agenda (please feel free to edit or add items)

1. Introductions
2. 10-15 minutes for roadmap
    * drafting [roadmap](https://hackmd.io/@plasmapy/ry0mmnj6v)
    * want to discuss "primary" items...Should `ParticleTracker` be on there?
3. solicit "Project Issues"
4. 
5. ...
6. ...
7. Issues
    1. ...
    2. ...
8. Pull requests in progress 
    1. [PR 963](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/963): grids #2
    2. [PR 953](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/953): `ParticleTracker`
        * needs review...Nick are you claiming this review?
    3. [PR 972](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/972): diamagnetic drift
    4. [PR 971](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/971): ExB notebook
    5. [PR 962](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/962): Coulomb logarithm naming
    6. [PR 932](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/932): Dispersion
    7. [PlasmaPy-NEI 41](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy-NEI/pull/41) — setting up GitHub Actions
* [Dominik] further CI reworks?
    
## Attendees

* Erik
* Nick
* Dominik
* Ramiz
* Gil

## Action Items

***Continuation Items***
> ***Erik***
> * Review grids #2 [PR 963](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/963)
> * Review dispersion [PR 932](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/932)
> * refine roadmap for next weeks discussion
> 
> ***Nick***
> * Review `ParticleTracker` [PR 953](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/953)
> * Review [PR 962](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/953)
> * Create an issue on adding a Jupyter notebook on Coulomb logarithm super magical fun stuff

***Erik***
* Review grids #2 [PR 963](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/963)
* Review dispersion [PR 932](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/932)
* Review Test 2 [PR 920](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/920)
* Open "Project Issue" on the distribution functions

***Dominik***
* add feedback to roadmap items "Transport" and "Particle Tracker"

***Nick***
* add feedback to roadmap items "Workshop" and "Simulations"
* Open issues on...
    1. Which Coulomb lagarithms should we support and how do we advertise them?
    2. Notebook on Coulomb logarithm

## Minutes

* Dominik merged Grids2 too early, Erik being the primary reviewer still had stuff to do there.
    * sorry!
* project idea: Distribution functions
    * instead, maybe use [scipy.stats](https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/stats.html)
        * alternative: [statsmodels](https://www.statsmodels.org/stable/index.html)
* NEI #41 https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy-NEI/pull/41
* [PR 962](https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy/pull/962): Coulomb logarithm naming
    * close to being merged
    * spawning 2 more issues
        * which Coulomb logarithms should we support?
        * Notebook on Coulomb logarithm
* Stuart, on rebases:
    > It's very easy to get carried away with rebases and squashes etc. I am personally of the opinion that it's a tool that's very useful sometimes but rarely needs to be wielded, especially by those who are not sufficiently trained in the art, given there are often substantially simpler and less risky alternatives.
* Further CI reworks
    * GitHub Actions works nicely.  Cleaner, easier to parse errors than Azure, CircleCI.
    * Ideal: move CircleCI stuff to GitHub Actions.  Would let people only need to learn GitHub Actions rather than multiple CI systems.  Only really special thing from CircleCI was Giles which would provide links to view doc builds.  Giles also does change logs, but we can probably do that from GitHub Actions
    * Top-level directory would get less cluttered if we only have one CI
    * General agreement that it would be great to have only one CI, and that we should try moving to GitHub Actions.
    * There are CI tools for notebooks, e.g. that run `black` on them; checks outputs.  Thinking about something that raises an exception that, e.g., "you committed a notebook without cleaning output", but you can have a label that the notebook should have its output not cleared.
