[Insight-users] Insight Journal submission: problems at every step of the way.

[Zachary Pincus]

Hi folks,

I just submitted a brief Insight Journal submission describing a 2D  
image contour extraction filter that I wrote, which I hope will prove  
useful and merit inclusion in ITK. Unfortunately, I have had some  
problems with this entire process, culminating in my code not  
building because of some bizarre configuration issue on the build  
machine that I of course cannot diagnose, and then being unable to  
submit a revision to said code in the hopes of remotely diagnosing  
the problem.

Here is a list of the problems I have encountered today with the  
Insight Journal.

Problem 0 is the simple fact that documentation for this entire  
process is scattered across at least two wikis (the itk wiki, and the  
insight software colloquium wiki), with important information (like  
the latex and source code templates for submission) only available on  
the itk wiki. Figuring out what, precisely, I needed to do and how to  
do it took far too long.

Problem 1 was that despite the fact that at the end of the new  
submission process, I clicked "finish" and got an email saying that  
the submission had been accepted, the paper did not show up in the  
Insight Journal. Only after I clicked on "My Publications" and saw at  
the end of the line a "finish publication" did I find yet more steps  
to complete. I guess I clicked only on the "finish" button inside the  
MIDAS frame, but perhaps not on the finish button outside of the  
frame? Having two finish buttons to press is confusing and  
counterintuitive.

Problem 2 centers around including source files for the automated  
build system. Nowhere was it particularly well-explained that source  
code should be uploaded alongside the article file -- I spent some  
time searching for a specific entry point to upload source for the  
automated build program. Only on my third perusal of http:// 
www.insightsoftwareconsortium.org/wiki/index.php/IJ-Testing- 
Environment did I notice that source should be uploaded as a  
secondary file and the build script will find it there.

So, I included a Source.tgz archive as a secondary file. However, tgz  
files are marked as unsupported and the upload process gave me  
trouble about that, despite the fact that the build system apparently  
had no problem opening it.

Problem 3 is that the code will not build on the test system. The  
problem is that the #define'd constant ITK_LOCATION (defined in  
itkMacro.h) is mysteriously unavailable to my code on the build  
machine, despite the fact that this constant is used throughout the  
ITK codebase (grep for it), and itkMacro.h should have been included  
properly. The same code compiles fine on my machine, where header  
files are properly included.

Problem 4 came when I tried to fix the build issue. On the "My  
Publications" link, there are two options: "modify revision" and  
"post a new revision." Surprisingly, "modify revision" in no way  
allows you to modify the revision. It just allows the exact same  
revision to be re-posted. How this is a modification is beyond me.  
The "post new revision" link then takes me to an extremely confusing  
frame with the directions to "Scroll down the frame and click on 'Add  
Bitstream'." When I did this and attempted to upload a new version of  
the PDF and source.tgz, I was provided with an AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED  
page because the operation was not permitted. So I can't add a new  
file, and so I can't even begin to try to diagnose why the build  
fails on the build machine.

All in all, this process has been extremely frustrating. Though I  
support the intention behind this all, the fact is that I've spent a  
day writing a "journal submission" describing an algorithm that is as  
old as the hills and whose implementation is straightforward (and  
exceptionally thoroughly documented in the code itself), and was then  
rewarded with getting to spend all evening fiddling around with the  
submit process. This is not a good use of my time.

Next time I write code for a basic, classic image processing method  
that ITK needs but does not have for some reason, I'll have to think  
twice about bothering to deal with all of this.

Zach